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OUR CYCLING TOUR 
IN ENGLAND 



OUR CYCLING TOUR 
IN ENGLAND 

FROM 

CANTERBURY TO DARTMOOR FOREST, AND 

BACK BY WAY OF BATH, OXFORD 

AND THE THAMES VALLEY 



BY 



/ 



REUBEN GOLD THWAITES 

SECRETARY OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN, AUTHOR 

OF "THE COLONIES, 1492-I750," "HISTORIC WATERWAYS" 

" THE STORY OF WISCONSIN," ETC. 



JpustrateU 




CHICAGO 
A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 

l8Q2 






Copyright 

By Reuben Gold Thwaites 

a.d. 1892 



[THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



This little journal of vacation ra7nblings in her 
native la?id is fondly inscribed. 



PREFACE. 



I HAVE not sought to make a guide-book 
of this journal of our little tour through 
southern England ; there are an abundance 
of such already, and very good ones. But 
having taken a somewhat novel trip, both as 
to route and conveyances, and seen some 
phases of the country and people at closer 
range than, unfortunately, the majority of our 
fellow-countrymen abroad have the opportunity 
for, I thought a recital of our experiences might 
not be altogether lacking in interest. We had 
no exciting adventures, wife and I ; life went 
smoothly with us the six weeks we were in 
the saddle, coursing along English highways 
and byways, and lovingly touching elbows 
with English rural life; there is little in this 
matter-of-fact record of our daily goings and 



viii Pi'eface. 

doings that can be called exhilarating, and yet 
we have never had another tour so replete 
with pleasure. A canoe ties one down to a 
restricted and secluded path; riding or driv- 
ing on a foreign tour has practical drawbacks, 
and is expensive ; a tricycle is a weary grind ; 
a bicycle alone gives one the best imaginable 
exercise, outruns canoe or horse, involves no 
cost of keep, enables one to meander at will, 
to linger or to fly as fancy dictates. By no 
other conveyance is one so independent in 
action, so free from care, or so thoroughly in 
communion with folk and Nature. 

I have sought to be a faithful reporter of 
what we saw and heard; but the passing 
traveller in any land can do nothing more 
than record surface indications that to the 
native may not seem fairly typical. American 
books about England are apt to be quite as 
amusing to Englishmen as their books about 
America are to us. 

This is inevitable; and yet I fancy the 
foreigner may often be nearer the mark than 
the native in picturing national character- 
istics. 



, Preface, ix 

The greater part of chapter vi. is em- 
braced in my article in "The New England 
Magazine" for May, 1892, entitled " Village 
Life in Old England." I am under obliga- 
tions to the publishers of that magazine for 
permission to reproduce it in this volume. 

REUBEN GOLD THWAITES. 



Madison, Wis , 

September, 1892, 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. In Kent 15 

II. In the Heart of the South Downs . 27 

III. Chichester, Goodwood, and Midhurst 51 

IV. With Hampshire Folk 72 

V. Winchester, and the Isle of Wight . 86 

VI. Village Life no 

VII. Wiltshire Downs and Salisbury Plain 134 

VIII. In the New Forest 153 

IX. Across Dorset 174 

X. The Hills of Devon 194 

XI. From Dartaioor to the Sea . . . 211 

XII. On the North Devon Coast . . . 225 

XIII. Somerset, and the Valley of the Wye 239 

XIV. From Bath to Oxford, by the White 

Horse Vale 264 

XV. The Thames Valley 284 

Index 311 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



West Gate, and Falstaff Inn, Canterbury 

Frontispiece. 

Ruins of Battle Abbey Facing page 32 

Shanklin Village, Isle of Wight " 96 

Rural England " 178 

Market-Place, Wells " 246 

Bath, with Abbey at the Left . . " 264 



N 




OUR 

CYCLING TOUR IN ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER I. 

IN KENT. 

/^ATERHAM, Surrey, Monday, May 18, 1891. 

^ We have been in England for a month, W 

and I, visiting friends in London and in suburban 
Surrey. It is most delightful, this inspection of 
English men and English women at close range, 
this enjoyment of their charming hospitality ; but the 
summer is now at hand, and it is necessary that we 
bestir ourselves from delicious idling if we are to 
carry out our programme of cycling through the 
southern and middle counties. 

Canterbury, Tuesday, 19th. "You excitable Amer- 
icans, you know, are always on the go, tearing up and 
down our little island, and we suppose there is no use 
at all of trying to induce you to stay quiet and enjoy 
yourselves." With such kind protests against our 



1 6 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

transatlantic views of tourists' duty, we were bidden 
Godspeed. 

Our cycling muscles are weak after a winter of 
disuse, and it is always good policy to begin a 
wheeling tour cautiously. The Surrey hills are rather 
steep even for practised legs, and so we have come 
down here by train, to get an easy start over the 
Kentish plain. 

Canterbury, Thursday, 21st In spite of all we 
had read about Canterbury, it was a surprise to find 
it so interestingly quaint. The city is literally filled 
with old timbered shops and dwellings, their pro- 
jecting upper stories and doorposts and floors sadly 
out of plumb and level. Tavern-signs which smack 
of Elizabethan times abound on every hand, and 
the courtyards of some of the inns cannot have 
been materially altered since Shakespeare was in the 
flesh. So much of the olden architecture remains 
that in some of the blocks a modern building is no- 
ticeable from its rarity. The cathedral, St. Martin's 
Church, St. Dunstan's Church, St. Augustine's Mon- 
astery, St. Bartholomew's Hospital, West Gate, Fal- 
staff Inn, — such a cloud of antiquities and stirring 
memories here envelops one that it requires but slight 
effort of the imagination to repeople these narrow 
streets and darkling lanes with the throngs which 
sought Becket's shrine, and of whom Chaucer so 
merrily sung. Had we needed inspiration for the 
enjoyment of things enduringly English, we should 
certainly have gained it here. 

We have been busy packing to-night. Our cabin 
trunk goes by " goods train" to Alton, over in Hamp- 
shire, where we anticipate spending four or five days 



/;/ Kent. 17 

with friends ; by sending it on ahead of us from time 
to time, we shall hope to get at its contents about 
every ten days. A stout canvas bag we book as a 
" train parcel " to Hastings ; as it contains changes 
of linen, our aim is to reach it perhaps twice each 
week. Upon our machines we shall carry luggage 
enough for immediate need. W , on her Ameri- 
can lady's-safety, has improvised a carrier just behind 
the saddle, which supports a goodly bundle carefully 
wrapped in a square of mackintosh ; and to her care, 
as well, falls the lunch -basket, also encased in rubber 
cloth, for one must prepare for possible daily showers 
while in the United Kingdom. On my own safety, 
purchased the other day from a Coventry maker, I 
have at front a newly devised cyclist's satchel, which 
is the best and most capacious luggage-carrier I have 
yet seen. Our two umbrellas are strapped length- 
wise on either side of the saddle, after the fashion of 
carbine-carriers on the English army cycles, while 
our mackintosh coats and leggings and my photo- 
graph camera are conveniently at hand. Our outfit 
is rather formidable, I admit; but as we are to be 
nearly two months away from our base of supplies, 
and must make ready for all manner of weather, ther- 
mometrically and barometrically, and with costumes 
adapted, as occasion demands, both to visiting and 
wheeling, I cannot see that we can well do with less. 
As I passed through the courtyard just now in 
the twilight, to arrange with the smiling bar- maid for 
an early breakfast, the ostler was rubbing down and 
oiling our steeds in a box stall, while the cham- 
ber-maid and " Boots" looked admiringly on over the 
half-door. " Tears to me, Joe," said Boots, " as 
2 



1 8 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

'ow the lyedy an' gent 's a roonawye coople, an' 's 
carr'n' their 'ouse 'long wi' 'em." 

" Thee 's a born ijit, Dyve, thee be's," responded 
the ostler, contemptuously, as with a rheumatic sigh 
he arose and wiped his perspiring brow with the back 
of his shirt-sleeve ; " they 's reg'l'r nuff, but I heer'n 
Bill, the waiter, a-tell'n' o' Cook as 'ow he know'd 
'em for 'Mericans immedjate, for the young missus 
ordered on a pitcher o' cold wahter at breakfas', — 
and that 's 'Merican every time, he says ; and he 
owght to know, as he 's served towrists oop in Wyles, 
where they set a joog o' wahter on every mornin' for 
breakfas', there 's so many 'Mericans as comes that 
wye. They drinks wahter wi' their victuals, and says 
' pitcher ' w'en they means ' joog,' an' all that wye 
o' talkin' an' do'n', you know, though I un'erstan' 
as 'ow they pertends to talk English o'er there in 
'Merica, but I be blymed if I can un'erstan' 'em 
mysel' soomtoimes. No, they 's 'Mericans, stryte 
'noof, joost a-towerin' the coontry, loike ; an' 't 's 
moighty soon they '11 give it oop too, a-cartin' all 
this stoof areound." 

Ashford, Friday, 2 2d. The sun was shining brightly 
through our ancient latticed window when the maid 
aroused us this morning at Canterbury. The crackling 
fire on the coffee-room hearth was most cheering, for 
there had been frost in the air over night. It was 
comfortable to toast one's feet on the iron dogs, and 
coffee and chops were the more grateful because pip- 
ing hot from the kitchen range. We were in proper 
mood to start upon our quest of the old and the 
beautiful. 

They saw us off at the archway of the inn with much 



In Kent. 19 

good-humored curiosity and many hearty well-wishes, 
— the landlady in front, in immaculate cap and all 
bows and smiles, bringing out the visitors' book at the 
last moment, to receive our autographic commenda- 
tions of her establishment ; by her side the blushing 
bar-maid, capped and aproned, red-cheeked and 
frizzle-haired, her buxom arms akimbo ; the side- 
whiskered head waiter, in a greasy, shiny dress-suit, 
that had apparently done duty these many long 
years of service, a towel over his left arm, and rub- 
bing his hands in gleeful remembrance of our tip ; 
the chamber-maid and cook, on tiptoes, overlooking 
the heads of the others, and modestly expectant of lar- 
gess ; while Joe, the ostler, and Dave, the boots, bravely 
held the machines for us to mount, and seemed proud 
to have the last word with the departing guests. 

It is only in England that May mornings are as soft 
and balmy as this on which we wheeled out of Canter- 
bury to the southwest. We were sadly out of practice 
on our machines, and having no knowledge of what 
topographical difficulties we might meet, were uncer- 
tain and indeed indifferent as to where the night of 
our first day on wheels might overtake us. Going 
forth in true gypsying spirit, we struck out up the 
broad valley of the Great Stour, and in a quarter 
of an hour from our inn were beyond the city walls 
and encompassed by fields. 

For the first few miles of the tortuous highway, 
which was as smooth as an asphalt walk, we had, over 
the hedge- rows, charming retrospective views of the 
cathedral, its square gray tower and western spires, 
rising far above the solid bank of neighboring red- 
tiled roofs. To the right, and sometimes to the left, 



20 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

the Stour, spanned by graceful bridges of stone and 
brick, wound blithely through green meadows, from 
which skylarks rose in quick succession as we whizzed 
along, and losing themselves in the azure, poured 
down upon us floods of bewitching melody. 

Much of the country is devoted to hop-gardens. 
The tops of the poles are often tied together with 
cords to keep them upright in wind-storms, and the 
effect is as if a gigantic cobweb covered the planta- 
tion ; while down below, groups of women, girls, and 
boys are busy weeding the young vines, now a foot in 
height, and giving them a preliminary twist about the 
poles. Square and circular drying-kilns, with conical 
iron ventilators at the top, twirled by the wind, are 
frequent. Hedges everywhere abound, — great solid, 
interminable banks of green, which cut the country 
up into a sort of gigantic checker-board, with 
the various enclosures all imaginable shapes, from 
round to square. l Every field, large or small, has 
its particular name, and has doubtless borne that 
name and been of that shape for hundreds of years, — 
some of them since Domesday Book. May seems to 
be the chief hedge-plant hereabout ; and the season 
being late, it is just coming into bloom, the emerald 
background being in spots splashed with great masses 
of white flowers, which load the air with delicate per- 
fume, while the grassy bank below is spangled with 
white and purple blossoms, chiefly daisies and mint. 

By and by we begin to mount the upland, and 
have a comprehensive panorama at our feet. — wide- 
stretching meadows, vividly green, on which horses 

1 An English agricultural friend writes me that " these 
curious-shaped fields contain uniform soil." 



In Kent. 21 

and cattle are peacefully grazing, as well as great 
flocks of sheep as yet unshorn, and bearing upon 
♦their burly backs rude stripes of red ochre, the 
brand of their owner; gracefully outlined, sombre- 
wooded hills, divided by vales, deep down in whose 
peaceful depths course feeders to the ocean-bound 
Stour, which sluggishly glistens upon the horizon 
of the lower level; white footpaths wind through 
the broad meadows up to where rises the curling 
smoke of forest hamlets, each with its square Norman 
tower lifting its hoary head above the tree- tops. 

We pass farm buildings, broad-spreading and pros- 
perous in appearance, and groups of laborers' cottages, 
often whitewashed, each with its front yard gay with 
flowers, and with roses luxuriantly clambering over the 
doors and windows. We spin through villages, — Than- 
ington, Milton, Chartham, Kennington, — each with 
its one long straggling street, cottages and shops com- 
mingled, flanked by the smithy's forge and the public- 
house. The neat appearance of the villages is their 
most striking feature in the eyes of Americans. 
Nearly every building is the cottage of a farm laborer 
or a mechanic. The yards are scrupulously kept free 
from litter; the wealth of vegetation in this moist 
climate soon hides from view whatever needs be 
hidden. In place of our crude American fences and 
buildings of wood, that, neglected, soon tumble into 
unsightly ruin, the English use brick and stone, which 
endure for centuries, and grow more beautiful with 
the passing years. Each village is a most charming 
study in red and green, — red brick, red chimney-pots, 
red tiles, red lichens carpeting the light-gray stone, 
and everywhere these masses of glowing red embow- 



22 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

ered in greenery, moss on the roofs and ivy on the 
walls. 

In the villages, or in front of the places of the 
wealthy, great stone boundary walls, seven, eight, and 
ten feet in height, often take the place of hedges ; 
they are of dressed flints and red brick, and among 
the forbidding masses of broken glass which are em- 
bedded in mortar on the top, dandelions and daisies 
frequently have found lodgement, like garlands in the 
hat of the sentinel. 

Now and then we meet a flock of sheep shuffling 
up a dense cloud of dust, and dismount to let them 
pass, for one might as well attempt to wheel through 
a stone wall as a drove of Southdowns ; while the 
shepherd, plodding stolidly behind, cries out a cheery 
but muffled " Thankee, sir ! thankee ! " from amid 
the stifling fog. 

At the numerous forks and cross-roads — for our 
invaluable ordnance-survey map presents a perfect 
tangle of highways — the finger-posts interest us, with 
their references to quaintly named hamlets off our 
path, — " Penny Pot " was one, for instance, and 
" Old Wives " another. 

It was half- past five in the afternoon, and time for 
dinner, when at last we wheeled through the inviting 
archway of the inn at Ashford. We have made only 
seventeen miles from Canterbury ; but it is our first 
day out, and we stopped to take our lunch by the 
wayside, to talk with the people, and leisurely to enjoy 
the country. We are not at all anxious to break the 
cycling record ; that is not what we came out for. 

Northiam, Sussex, Saturday, 23d. Ashford (ten 
thousand inhabitants) has a few very old timbered 



In Kent. 23 

houses and a rather fine parish church with a Per- 
pendicular tower ; but the prevailing odor is of rail- 
way shops, not antiquity, the Southeastern Company's 
extensive works being located there. 

We made thirty- six and a half miles to-day, and 
had an abundance of time to study both country and 
people. On our road from Ashford to here lay the 
villages — mere hamlets, some of them — of Great 
Chart, Bethersden, High Halden, Tenterden, Rol- 
venden, and Newenden. 

Laborers' and mechanics' cottages prevail. They 
are charming little pictures without, with their sash 
curtains, trim gardens, and wealth of climbers over 
wall and roof. Not all are so pleasant within. We 
stopped for water at one of them this afternoon, right 
thirsty from toiling in the blazing sunshine. Unlike 
the majority, which are in blocks of from two to a 
dozen, under one long roof, the eaves to the road, 
this cottage, with its wealth of yellow thatch, stood 
alone in the midst of perhaps a quarter of an acre of 
land. There were to the front fruit-trees in blossom, 
and little box hedges checkering the dainty flower- 
garden ; while to the rear were a vegetable patch, a 
poultry-yard, a half-dozen conical straw beehives, 
and a stone cowhouse, gray with mosses. It seemed 
safe enough to seek refreshment in so tasteful a bower. 
In response to our raps, a black-eyed, sharp-nosed 
little woman in a white cap and apron came around 
the corner of the house to look us over, and then dis- 
appearing to the back, soon unbolted and unchained 
the front door from within, and with much courtesying 
and rubbing of hands ushered us into the general 
living-room. There was a quaint deep-set fireplace, 



24 Our Cycli?ig Tour in England. 

within which hung an iron pot on a formidable iron 
crane. An old tall clock ticked softly on one side of 
the hearth, and on the other a rude settle stood at 
right angles with the wall. There were, besides, a cheap 
modern table spread with white oil-cloth, three or four 
high-backed chairs that might have come down from 
the days of Cromwell ; on the low grimy wall, a set of 
hanging shelves for crockery and pewter ; a black and 
bulky chest of drawers, which possibly came long ago 
from some auction sale of " quality " furniture, — all 
picturesque enough in their place, but here only 
heightening the prevailing aspect of damp, dingy, 
dirty gloom. The water, brought in a rude earthen 
jug, was streaked white and green with motes and 
vegetable matter ; it came from the pond behind the 
house, the woman said. We had seen ducks swim- 
ming in the little brackish pool as we came in, and 
but made a pretence of drinking. Is it any wonder 
that these people drink beer, and marvel at our 
request for water? 

The Chequers Inn, 1 at High Halden, is one of the 
most charming old hostelries to the outer view that we 
have yet seen in England. Set back from the high- 
way, with a broad gravelled drive leading to its door, 
roses and ivy clinging profusely to its white stone walls, 
a line of lead-glazed lattice windows indicating the 
bar, and by the great square entrance a shaded bench 
on which carters were resting over their tankards, it 
was indeed a picturesque bit, such as we were glad 
we had come across seas to contemplate. 

1 Two hundred years ago taverns were indicated by a post 
in front, painted in a red and white checker pattern. This is 
why so many English inns still bear the name of The Chequers. 



/;/ Kent. 25 

Along the road to-day, we encountered numerous 
strings of great black and bay " shire " horses, — 
always a groom on the front animal, the others follow- 
ing a Vescalier, tied together by both neck and tail. 
They are evidently going to a fair. It is the law of 
the road for cyclists to "give audible and sufficient 
warning of approach," when overtaking cavalcades of 
this character. At the gentle tinkle of our bells, the 
horses would rear a little fore and aft, and lightly 
snort as we went cautiously by their quivering hulks, 
the groom touching his cap in that silent, deferential 
way so characteristic of the working classes in rural 
England. What fine horses we see everywhere on 
our journey ! At the plough, the cart, or the carriage, 
it is all the same, — fine, glossy, large, well-bred 
beasts, never in a great hurry, but solid and sure, 
like the British themselves. 

Tenterden is a long, straggling, pretty village, evi- 
dently with something of a market. The market- 
place, like that of many of the villages we pass 
through, is the " high street " spread out to about the 
width of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, — a 
good shouting distance across. We pass the fine old 
parish church to our left, as we emerge from the place, 
its Perpendicular spire springing high above the sur- 
rounding trees. It has for centuries been a saying 
among common Kentish folk that " Tenterden steeple 
was the cause of Goodwin Sands." Monkish tradition 
has it that these dangerous sandbanks off the eastern 
coast of Kent were once an island belonging to the 
great Earl Goodwin. The countrymen say that cer- 
tain funds designed for a sea-wall for the island were 
expended by the monks in building this steeple on 



26 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

the mainland, and that later, for want of this wall, 
the island was the victim of a " sodaine and mighty 
inundation of the sea." 

There has, however, been another version, to the 
effect that the steeple is responsible in this same 
fashion for the filling up of Sandwich Haven. In the 
dialogues of Sir Thomas More, at an assembly of " old 
folk of the cuntre," one " good old father " is telling 
of the baneful effect of Tenterden steeple. " ' Why 
hath the stepell hurt the haven, good father ? ' quod 
they. ' Nay, by 'r Lady, Maysters,' quod he, ' ych 
cannot tell you why, but chote well yt hath ; for 

by , I knew that a good haven tyll the stepell 

was bylded, and by the Mary masse, cha marked yt 
never throve synnys.' " 

Our road to-day was over undulating country, — a 
good many long walks up hill, but also quite as many 
jolly spins down. At four o'clock in the afternoon, 
taking a sudden dip, we came upon the broad green 
meadows of the river Rother, — an insignificant stream 
that in broader lands would be styled a creek. Sweep- 
ing through the rather untidy little hamlet of Newen- 
den on the Kentish side, we passed over a narrow 
bridge of brick and stone into Sussex. A hill or two. 
more to climb, and three miles beyond the border we 
bowled into Northiam, where the Six Bells proved an 
ideal inn for tired travellers on a Saturday night. 





CHAPTER II. 

IN THE HEART OF THE SOUTH DOWNS. 

VTORTHIAM, Sussex, Sunday, 24//1. This is a 
^ ^ thoroughly characteristic little English village. 
The parish church is of the rugged Norman type, like 
most of its kind in the southeastern counties. On 
the green is a giant oak, full twelve feet in diameter 
at the base. There is a tradition that under this 
sprawling forest monarch, Queen Elizabeth ate her 
breakfast one morning in the long ago, and for this 
reason it is most carefully preserved by the loyal vil- 
lagers. The great rents in its trunks are filled with 
bricks and mortar, while a network of heavy chains 
prevents its monster arms from parting company. 

To the east, on a gentle slope, is the rather fine 
" big house " of the squire, who owns the neighboring 
country, hill and valley, copse, field, and meadow. 
His well-wooded grounds, beautifully kept, sweep 
down to the village green. Along his boundary wall 
stretches the one irregular street. Here and there, 
prominent among the lowly cottages and shops, is a 
timbered house, left over from the Elizabethan age, 
out of whose picturesque lattices most likely idle vil- 



28 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

lagers stared at the gay court of the Virgin Queen 
while she broke her fast yonder, just as their de- 
scendants stared at us of common clay, as we wheeled 
along beneath their windows last evening. It is not 
daily that the Six Bells has guests to sleep in its an- 
cient four-poster. 

The smock-frocks are not all gone from England. 
I had supposed they were, for we are constantly be- 
ing told in books of travel that this cradle of our an- 
cestors has been so modernized that the old dress and 
customs are no longer to be found here, and that 
Merry England is simply humdrum, nineteenth-cen- 
tury England, with the poetry all out of it, — " Ameri- 
canized," I think one of our globe-trotting com- 
patriots has said. Possibly the tourist centres have 
been "Americanized," — certainly one may say this 
of some of the hotels there, — but I venture to say 
that rural England is pretty much the same sort of 
country as, that through which the elder Weller drove 
his coach, and in which Tom Brown was reared. We 
have frequently, in our journey, met elderly farm 
laborers shuffling along in their neat white smocks 
with open yokes, and they all look as though they had 
stepped out of some of Abbey's pictures. To-day 
the old fellows have been numerous enough. A 
group of them in the rear seats at church, as they 
stood shyly twirling their hats in their hands, like 
water-wheels, when the squire and his lady entered, 
presented an edifying spectacle. 

Battle, Monday, 25//Z. We had been having 
good weather from Canterbury to Northiam, — good 
weather for England ; an occasional brief shower 
only, in which we would lay to beside an overarching 



In the Heart of the South Downs. 29 

hedge and raise our umbrellas. This morning, how- 
ever, black clouds poured sheets of water upon 
Northiam, and we were imprisoned with mine host 
until noon. During lunch the clouds thinned, and 
through jagged rents were seen great patches of 
ether, vividly blue. As we sallied forth, the atmos- 
phere was soft and balmy with the odor of wild 
flowers. The subdued light rendered more brilliant 
the red of the buildings and the green of the hedges 
and the fields. 

At first our route out of Northiam was largely up- 
hill, over a roughly metalled road, the hedges, glis- 
tening from raindrops, often nearly meeting over the 
narrow, crooked, deep-sunken way. From the sum- 
mit of the first hill the backward view of the village 
and the intervening valley was most enchanting. We 
are touring through dream-land. 

Buttercups, vividly yellow, and kissed by the rain, 
thickly stud the hedge-banks. The yellow primroses, 
with which Surrey copse-corners were so delicately 
gay a week or so ago, have now nearly departed. 
White stitchwort gleams, star-like, in the luxuriant 
grass ; another familiar wayside flower is a tiny blue 
bird's-eye ; and to-day we have wild blue hyacinths in 

such great profusion that W , who has a botanist's 

sympathy for growing blossoms, and seldom gathers 
such when scarce, plucked a corsage bouquet of them. 
Thus bedecked, we wheeled along gayly amid the sweet 
songs of ethereal larks, the chatter of startled thrushes, 
and afar off the monotonous plaint of cuckoos. 

Emerging at last from these obscure by-roads upon 
the broader and smoother highway, we follow the 
crest of a ridge, — the watershed between the Rother 



30 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

and one of its tributaries. On either hand are wide, 
far-stretching valleys, with hedge- streaked meadows, 
woods, and thatched cottages lowly nestled by the 
side of brooks. The direction to the first village, 
Staple Cross, as given us by two peasant women, one 
of them with a hoe over her shoulder, and the other 
pushing a fat and dirty baby in a rude perambula- 
tor, was simple : " Foller the telergraph loine." Thus 
instructed, we did not lose sight of the wire which 
stretches overland from Northiam to the post-office at 
Staple Cross ; and it led us thither through many a 
maze of cross-roads, along the ridge and through the 
meadows. 

At Staple Cross there is a small brewery, several 
shops, and the usual cottages of laborers. Crispe's 
Corner, a quarter of an hour farther on, is a rather 
dreary hamlet of a dozen cottages and a small public- 
house ; but the view from Crispe's is exquisite. On 
the left we have the finest panorama we have yet laid 
eyes on in southern Britain. Forest-trees — oaks and 
beeches chiefly — quite fill the lower reaches of the 
shapely valley, whose outlet fades from view upon the 
horizon ; on either side, the hill-slope fields, oddly 
shaped, are alternating splashes of chocolate brown 
or vivid green, according to whether freshly planted 
or choked with springing grain. On the brow of the 
overtopping hill beyond, commanding a wider range 
of view, we have successions of valleys, woods, and 
fields, with here and there the lofty spire of a par- 
ish church, and smoke rising lazily from cotters' 
chimneys. 

At Whallington we cross the river Brede, over 
whose low banks the tall grass bends and quite hides 



In the Heart of the South Downs. 31 

the little winding stream from sight until one is close 
upon it. Then we go whizzing beneath a railway 
arch, and after a long tug uphill with our well-loaded 
machines are in Battle at five p. m. 

Nature is now in her prettiest garb. The morning 
rain freshened the foliage and washed the walls. In 
the warm, clear atmosphere of this afternoon, in the 
midst of this wealth of rural beauty, we have with 
keen zest enjoyed the mere sense of living in a 
world so abounding in heavenly places. 

We have just been viewing a mellow sunset from 
the heights of Senlac, back of the Abbey grounds. 
It is easy to picture here the movements of Harold 
and the Conqueror. To the southeast, over the swell- 
ing hill-tops, now bare, now dark with tree-clumps, 
can just be distinguished the broad meadows of Pe- 
vensey Level, where William is reputed to have landed. 
It is plain that he moved up the narrow valley ; and 
here, on the gentle slopes of Senlac, Harold was in- 
trenched behind a stockade, which the Conqueror 
carried by assault. Where Harold was slain, William 
built this abbey, the crumbling ruins of which are one 
of the most interesting historical monuments in all 
England. One fully appreciates at Battle Abbey how 
far removed we are from the time of the Conquest. 

Lewes, Tuesday, 26th. Battle Abbey was opened 
to-day for the first time this season. Battle was as 
quiet up to ten o'clock as if the old town had gone 
to sleep, never to wake up again. At The George 
we appeared to be the only guests, but we have grown 
quite used to being the sole patrons of village inns : 
business is dull in most of them, save in the bar par- 
lor and the tap-room, and in the great dining-hall on 



32 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

market and fair days. Up and down the high street, 
which broadens into a market-place before the pon- 
derous Abbey gate, could only be seen the butcher's 
blue-aproned boy delivering goods from a wooden 
tray deftly carried on his shoulder, the baker's man 
trundling his wheezy hand-cart, the " cow-keeper " 
carrying his store of cans in a wheelbarrow and ring- 
ing a bell, a poke-bonneted old woman shuffling 
along the footpath in heelless slippers, weighted 
down with a full market-basket, some ancient yokels 
in white smocks, and a tow-headed apprentice chas- 
ing a dog that had evidently snatched a flitch of 
bacon from a grocer's window. 

At ten began a transformation. Small boys and 
white-capped women and girls appeared by the 
dozens, bearing all manner of printed, painted, and 
written signs, wooden and pasteboard, all of them 
nailed across the tops of pointed sticks, which were 
planted conspicuously in each little front garden. 
By eleven the whole street had blossomed out with 
legends in black and red and green : " Refresh- 
ments," " Lunch, with Tea," " Temperance Drinks, 
and Light Lunch," and " Hot Water Furnished Par- 
ties bringing their own Refreshments," — all of which 
looked strange enough in the midst of these quaint 
old parterres, backed as they are by moss-grown 
walls of .brick and stone, and old timbered houses 
that had stood there these five or six hundred years, 
and evidently seen better days. 

Soon the tourists came. There were no Americans, 
so far as we could see, but sturdy, more or less com- 
monplace English folk from the neighboring towns, 
— largely seaside "resorters" from Hastings, seven 



/;/ the Heart of the South Downs. 33 

miles away. The Hastings contingent came in brakes 
and char-a-bancs. As load after load wheeled into 
the market-place and alighted, — the drivers resigning 
their teams to local ostlers, — sharp-eyed old women 
stood in cottage doorways, half hid amid the ivy, 
and watched with an anxiety painfully apparent for 
possible customers for their small wares. 

At twelve, when the gate opened, full two hundred 
and fifty sight-seers had assembled, which was not 
bad business for the guides. The villagers had turned 
out in goodly numbers to see us all, waiting patiently 
until the last had disappeared within the portal. 
After the show was over, there was a scramble for 
lunch. Doubtless many of the amateur venders were 
now made happy. The great dining- hall of The 
George — its walls thickly hung with the framed 
charters of friendly societies and lodges which regu- 
larly meet and eat there — was prepared for a crush ; 
and quite in state we partook of what the ponderous 
waiter, gorgeous in his holiday dress-suit, and with a 
fresh towel over his arm, styled a " cold collation." 
Lunch it is, when served in the coffee-room on ordi- 
nary occasions, but " cold collation, zur, in the 'all, 
zur, Chuesdays, w'en the h'Abbey's on, zur." 

The waiter was so kind as, in the midst of his great 
cares, to come out with the landlord and the ostler, to 
see us off, and with his towel he wafted us a stately fare- 
well. The weather was cool and bright, as if made to 
order. A gentle breeze from off the sea fanned us 
on the quarter, but did not impede progress. 

We overtook and passed brakes filled with our 
morning companions at the Abbey, going out to Lord 
Brassey's beautiful seat, Normanhurst, three miles to 
3 



34 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

the west of Battle. They were very merry, and politely 
joked us as we left them to the rear. At the gate of 
Normanhurst — which is always open on the days 
the Abbey is on view — a smartly uniformed police- 
man stood guard, and near him crouched a group of 
squalid mendicants, with hands outstretched, — there 
is destitution enough, even in this rustic beauty-spot ; 
the beggar everywhere haunts your footsteps in all of 
these foreign lands, and is forever sitting in my lord's 
gateway. 

As we spin down into Catsfield, with its pretty 
model brick cottages, built for Brassey's servants, we 
catch fine views, over the wooded valley intervening, 
of the modern spires and towers of Normanhurst 
Castle. A ruddy-faced carter, in a white blouse, 
walking beside us with his team up the hill beyond, 
said it was twenty-four miles to Lewes (pronounced in 
two syllables), and that there were some "toppers" 
ahead of us. We found the toppers later on. They 
each went up for two or three miles at an angle of 
about thirty degrees, and at times we sighed for a 
steam lift. 

Catsfield, Ninfield, Boreham Street, Windmill Hill, 
Magham Down, Horse Bridge, Dicker Common, 
Laughton Pound, Ringmer, — what an interesting 
study it would be to trace the origin of some of these 
names of villages we have passed through to-day, from 
Battle to Lewes ! No doubt many a quaint romance 
or interesting bit of folk-lore, long since forgotten, has 
its monument here. 

At Ninfield, with the graceful towers of Norman- 
hurst still visible to the rear, the ocean burst upon our 
unfolding view. From this high vantage-point — for the 



In the Heart of the South Downs. 35 

hamlet straggles along the crest of a " topper" — we 
have before us an inspiring scene. Great chalk downs 
descend to the sea in rolling ridges of greenery ; upon 
their summits here are often groves, and their bald 
sides are fantastically partitioned by hawthorn hedges, 
for the most part into sheep pastures, in which flocks 
of Southdowns nervously nibble. Beyond, a goodly 
strip of the Atlantic, dancing in the sunlight, leads up 
to the horizon ; while far to the right looms the dark, 
stern promontory of Beachy Head, closing in a pic- 
ture which undergoes a great variety of tones beneath 
the changing sky. 

Kent and Sussex abound in windmills of the Hol- 
land pattern. To-day we meet them chiefly on the 
hill-tops, their creaking arms hung with canvas sails 
which flap noisily in the breeze. We thought it a 
pretty scene, as the dusty genius of Windmill Hill, 
pipe in mouth, bent over the half-door of his grind- 
ing-room, gossiping with two comely women sitting on 
the rude steps leading up to his domain, and having 
an eye to a brace of children playing at their feel. 
These windmills, with the human groups about them, — 
domestic sometimes, and again carters with their loads, 
waiting for turns at the hopper, — are a picturesque 
feature in the land. 

On Dicker Common, a comparatively level stretch, 
where for several miles there is a succession of small 
hamlets, we overtook an old laborer in traditional 
corduroy who had an intelligent aspect, and dis- 
mounted to walk with him. He seemed pleased at 
our interest in his affairs ; but his curiosity about 115 
was sharp, and his shrewd questions quite as leading 
as those attributed to Yankees by travellers from this 



$6 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

side of the Atlantic who write books on American 
characteristics. In fact, inquisitiveness among every- 
day people is peculiar to no race. 

He was interested, he said, " to zee a female on a 
machine. Ah 'ave zeen 'em, zur, as 'ad a man be- 
hoind, an' also, zur, a female on three w'eels, zur, 
boot n'er befoor did I ivver zee a female aloane on 
two w'eels, zur ! " Growing confidential, he told 

W that he had at home a daughter just returned 

from America, — " w'ich Ah take it, lady, ye 're frum 
yerzel." On being asked from what part of America 
his daughter was, he seemed puzzled, evidently never 
having thought of it in that way before. Doffing his 
hat to scratch his head over this new idea, he said he 
"joost disremembered," but was quite sure his daugh- 
ter could tell if we would but go with him to his cot- 
tage and ask her. 

We were forced to decline the invitation, for the 
afternoon was getting on. Bidding the old fellow 
good-day, we mounted and were off. Crossing over 
the next knoll, a quarter of a mile ahead, we turned 
in our saddles for a backward glimpse of Dicker Com- 
mon. Our wayfaring friend was still standing in the 
middle of the road, hat in hand, watching our disap- 
pearance. 

At Horse Bridge, we cross the Cuckmere over a 
small brick bridge, but the stream is almost dry. At 
Laughton Pound, a pretty village, with a neat, enticing 
inn, The White Hart, we stop to debate whether or 
not this shall be our abiding-place. Lewes, our 
original destination, is six miles away ; we are tired ; 
and it is half past six by the clock in the church 
tower. We decide, however, to go on. 



In the Heart of the South Downs. 37 

Ringmer, a few miles on, is the sort of rustic village 
that we should like to spend a week in. On the broad 
green, boys are playing a rough game resembling 
hockey ; and in front of the inns, villagers serenely 
sit on benches and gossip and quaff their beer in the 
peaceful twilight. 

From Ringmer our way led up a broad white street, 
for a long distance hemmed in by the high brick 
walls of gentlemen's places. Then, passing over the 
crest of a huge chalk down, we coasted to its base, 
zigzagging between walls and hedges and open fields. 
Passing donkey carts and carriages, vine-clad cot- 
tages and stately mansions, too swiftly to do more 
than glance at them, we had a final grand swoop of 
three-quarters of a mile down into the smiling valley 
of the Ouse, where, dark and quaint in the gathering 
dusk, between two mighty downs, lay Lewes. 

New Shoreham, Wednesday, 27//?. At Lewes we 
were housed in one of the most delightfully cosey inns 
we have yet been in. The fresh-faced, buxom land- 
lady has a jolly, whole-souled, business-like manner 
which is quite captivating. I had occasion to hunt 
her up last evening soon after our arrival. She was 
in the cheerful bar parlor, busied in giving directions 
to her maids for the coming day, at the same time 
waiting cheerily on two prosperous-looking farmers in 
leathern riding-gaiters, who had stopped in to have a 
friendly glass before leaving for home. The appoint- 
ments of the establishment in other directions more 
nearly concerning us were also of the most comforta- 
ble character, and so deliciously quaint withal that 
we seemed to be living in the pages of Dickens and 
Thackeray. 



38 Our Cycling Tour in England, 

Lewes (eleven thousand two hundred inhabitants) 
is the county town of Sussex, and although rather 
dingy as a whole, is well worth study for the bits and 
corners of antiquity to be met with here. It has 
too the old-time characteristics of a south of Eng- 
land county town that has not been spoiled by the 
tourists. 

The fine old Norman castle, at the top of the high 
street, has a striking gateway and a well-preserved 
keep. The hoary pile is in the custody of the Sussex 
Archaeological Society, which here maintains a cred- 
itable museum of local relics, some of the tapestries 
being remarkably fine. At the base of the hill and 
across lower town, in the midst of a sheep-meadow 
watered by a sluggish stream, are the picturesque, 
grass-covered ruins of the Priory of St. Pancras. Few 
arches of the structure are now standing, but there 
are enough remains to convey to one some idea of 
how beautiful must once have been this monastic 
monument of chalk, erected by Gundrada, the Con- 
queror's daughter. 

As we stood contemplating the ivy- clad arches and 
bits of sculptured wall, vividly white, rising with their 
delicate tracery from piles of sod-grown debris, and 
seeking in fancy to reconstruct the original, a flock of 

sheep crowded around us in wonder. W , in a 

merry mood, looked the leader sternly in the eyes. 
He stood rooted to the spot for a dozen seconds, 
then, with a frightened ba-a-a ! dashed off through 
the priory arches with his score of bleating followers 
helter-skelter at his heels, — a pretty sight, which I 
should have liked to photograph, but the runaways 
were too quick for me. 



In tJie Heart of tJie South Downs, 39 

We started for Brighton after lunch. The run is 
ten mile's, for the most part gradually descending be- 
tween the huge rolling downs, which are here bare 
and grass-grown, with occasional excavations for 
chalk, great white gashes in the greensward, con- 
spicuous for many miles roundabout. Flocks of sheep 
dot the hillsides, and now and then a shepherd is 
seen, a lonely figure en silJwuette against the clear 
blue sky. Here and there in this broad expanse of 
grassy ridges and sugar-loaf hills, one vast sheep 
pasture, — South Down mutton is famous, — is a sum- 
mit crowned with a small clump of wind-warped 
trees, evidently a surveyor's landmark. The road- 
ways, traversing the country in every conceivable 
direction, are, as everywhere in the chalk districts, a 
network of glaring white lines. 

To-day there is a stiff breeze dead ahead from off 
the ocean yonder, impeding progress and filling eyes 
and nostrils with chalk-dust, which envelops us in 
great clouds. W finds it particularly hard navi- 
gating, for her skirts fill at each savage gust, and even 
on the down grades she occasionally loses her balance 
and is roughly dismounted. 

We had, however, despite this drawback, some fine 
spins, and made a particularly good entry into 
Brighton, through broad avenues overarched with 
elms and crowded with fashionable equipages in con- 
siderable variety. We cared little for the great sea- 
side resort, having already had enough of that sort 
of thing at Margate, Broadstairs, Ramsgate, and 
Hastings, — not that these are in extent to be com- 
pared with Brighton, but they will do as samples; 
and our present business is with rural England. 



40 Cur Cycliiig Tour in England. 

After an hour or two of sight-seeing, we were again 
in the saddle and started westward over the Marine 
Parade. To the left was the strip of sandy beach, 
alive with children, nurses, donkeys, and merry- 
andrews, with the great gray ocean beyond, studded 
with sails and belching funnels; to the right, three 
miles of hotels and galleried villas, a thousand win- 
dow-boxes brilliant with bedding plants, blue lobelias, 
and scarlet geraniums, and innumerable canvas awn- 
ings of striking hues. 

On the broad footpaths, Bath chairs, occupied by 
pale invalids or obese dowagers, were being hauled 
up and down by burly, aldermanic-looking, silk-hatted 
fellows, each with his license number on a large metal 
tag pendent from a breast-button. Threading their 
way between the ceaseless procession of carriages were 
equestrians of both sexes, looking jaunty enough, for 
English men and women do know how to ride, and 
almost invariably have good mounts. One gay young 
fellow rode tandem : his mount was a solid chestnut 
pacer ; ahead of him, guided only by a yellow silken rib- 
bon which fluttered prettily in the breeze, a stallion, 
black as a sloe and with blazing eyes, pranced and 
reared as proudly as if he well knew he was the admi- 
ration of the parade, and that thousands of pairs of hu- 
man eyes were watching him. It was quite as good as 
a circus performance, but altogether too much like it. 

After three miles of the brilliant Brighton parade, 
we were quite content to come down to the quiet lit- 
tle fishing villages which here line the coast westward. 
Seven miles out, at New Shoreham, where the river Adur 
finds the sea through dreary salt marshes and ridges of 
sand, we put up for the night, for dusk was setting in. 



In the Heart of the South Downs. 41 

Just in front of our rather modern inn the sprawl- 
ing stream is crossed by a fine suspension bridge, the 
approach to which is through a ponderous arch, upon 
which the dyspeptic-looking stone lion of the Duke of 
Norfolk stands guard. The bridge, over which toll is 
still collected by the duke's servants, was built by 
some former Norfolk in the time of George IV. 
Midway an iron plate informs the public that either 
death or transportation to the colonies will be the 
punishment meted out to any one injuring the struc- 
ture. There must have been a deal of meddling with 
bridges in the reign of the fourth George, for we 
have seen not a few notices to the same savage pur- 
port, all bearing like date. 

The Early English church here at New Shoreham 
is said by Freeman to be " perhaps the only English 
parish church of the thirteenth century which affects 
the type of the minster and that might be a minster in 
scale as well as in style." After dinner we attended 
service there. The small congregation seemed fairly 
lost in the forest of great round stone pillars, and it 
was with difficulty we could hear the parson's words. 
He spoke with simplicity and with much feeling of 
the life and character of the saint whom this day 
commemorates, and bade his little flock of sailor- 
folk go and do likewise in the regeneration of self 
and the world. 

Chichester, Thursday, 2M1. We started from 
New Shoreham at a quarter past nine this morning. 
Proceeding up the east bank of the Adur, we soon 
reached Old Shoreham, a mile away. It is a mere 
hamlet now, with a few cottages and a public-house ; 
but the old Norman church dates from the time of 



42 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

the Crusades, and has not yet been spoiled by " res- 
toration." Crossing the wide salt marsh to the west 
by another but simpler toll-bridge, — again the duke's, 
— we passed the modern buildings of St. Nicholas's 
College, and then struck out into the country. The 
broad white road was as smooth as a billiard -table, 
though hardly as level, for we had frequently to dis- 
mount for walking. 

A few miles out, the antiquated church at Lancing 
hamlet, and some curious old thatched cottages there, 
caused us to linger and photograph them. At Somp- 
ting, the church has an undoubted Saxon tower, the 
only one we have yet seen ; indeed, there are few 
left in England. Leaving our machines in charge of 
the Sompting wagon-smith, we ascended through a 
charming lane to the top of an adjacent hill, and had 
below us a far-reaching expanse of country. It is 
laid out like a great park, with alternating woods 
and meadows, truck-gardens and cropped fields, and 
miles on miles of dark green hedges intersecting 
one another at every possible angle. The hills are 
often topped with windmills, which look at a dis- 
tance like giants swinging Indian clubs. Down in 
the valleys are glittering streams, coursing slowly to 
the sea, and beside them little hamlets with hoary 
church towers. A mile or so to the south is the " re- 
sort " town of Worthing, set down on the seashore, 
and beyond all, the ocean, a prominent feature in the 
scene. 

What a country this for antiquarians ! Every par- 
ish church we see, near or far, bears evidence of 
great age. Within those ivy-clad walls, mentioned, 
many of them, in Domesday Book, have worshipped 



/// the Heart of the South Downs. 43 

followers of the Conqueror; from their portals have 
gone forth many a band of devoted knights, sworn in 
the cause of the Crusades ; Magna Charta was pro- 
claimed to the people from their pulpits ; they stood 
firm while the Wars of the Roses raged about them ; 
and doubtless from some of the very towers which 
we see before us to-day flashed beacon-lights when 
the invincible Armada was hovering in the Channel 
hard by. Through all the shock and tumult of for- 
eign and domestic strife these houses of peace have 
stood, — now Catholic, now Protestant, now High 
Church, and now Low, but all the time consecrated 
to the one God, whose Word is at the basis of all 
enduring creeds, Christian or Pagan, however different 
their interpretation of it. 

We proceed on our journey through many a stately 
avenue, bounded by the high brick and stone walls of 
broad estates, and the trees set within meet over our 
heads, affording agreeable shade. Many a pretty 
lane we pass, and quaint thatched cottages of lodge- 
keepers and laborers. We dash through numerous 
little villages, some of which are most bewitching in 
form and color, and tempt us to linger when per- 
haps we should be going on our way. A young bi- 
cycler passed us like a flash to-day. His jacket and 
waistcoat were tied on his handle-bar, his cap was set 
back, his hair and necktie were flying, and his face 
was as red as a bit of raw beef. With distended eyes 
fastened upon the track ahead, and head and body 
bent low, he was apparently making a record, poor 
fellow, and had no time to waste on scenery or people. 

They are very busy in the fields just now. We 
meet ploughmen by scores all along the way, and 



44 Otir Cycling Tour in England. 

must needs be cautious as we approach the mouths 
of lanes for fear of running afoul of strings of plough- 
horses coming out of them. It is customary to keep 
the animals at work but a few hours at a time, 
and there appears to be more frequent changing of 
teams than of men. Horseflesh is well cared for 
in England. 

We pass men breaking flints on the roadway, with 
wire goggles to protect their eyes from the flying bits ; 
shepherds resting on gates, with dogs at side, idly 
watching their grazing flocks ; carters in white blouses, 
walking beside tandem teams of heavy shire horses, 
and gazing at us with dull curiosity; children with 
books and slate slung at back, playing by the road- 
side, laggards from school ; farm laborers, bearing 
bill-hooks for hedge-trimming, or hoes heavy enough 
to serve as adzes, shuffling along, none too eager to 
reach their appointed tasks. Mayhap the parson and 
his rosy-cheeked women folk trundle past in their 
modest dog-cart from a day's shopping in the county 
town; or the squire, fresh down on the train from 
London, where he was nobody, to here, where, lord of 
the manor, he is everybody, drives by in silent state, 
with a brace of liveried retainers on the box-seat. 

A smudge of smoke proceeding from an unfenced 
copse attracted my attention just before we reached 
Arundel, and I went within to investigate. It was 
from a charcoal-burner's camp. The burner is a 
ragged, large-boned, gypsy sort of fellow, with a dark 
skin and a low brow, yet quite sociable, and with 
some native wit. His wife, stout and coarse-grained, 
sat on a keg nursing a positively filthy infant, while 
several other children, ranging down from ten years 



In the Heart of the South Downs, 45 

old, played or worked about them, according to their 
ages. Their home consisted of two low, foul huts, 
composed of sticks stood on end, with a roof of 
boughs and sod, and the wall-cracks chinked with 
mud. Just outside were two smoking charcoal piles 
smothered down with dirt and ashes, and the man 
and his two oldest boys were splitting wood for an- 
other. It takes three days and three nights, the fel- 
low said, to burn a pile ; and every hour, night and 
day, it has to be watched and banked. This camp 
is one of fourteen maintained by a London firm 
which contracts for the wood with gentlemen in va- 
rious parts of England and Wales. As fast as one 
lot is burned and carted to the nearest railway sta- 
tion for transport to London, the camp moves on to 
the next copse on its beat. 

The burner himself can " read a trifle," he said ; 
but his " 'oman and children has no learnin'." This 
squalid camp is their home the year around, and they 
have never known other, neither do they mingle with 
the world without. Here are English people living 
and English children being reared amid quite as de- 
graded surroundings, in as great filth and squalor, as 
I have seen in a camp of Cree Indians in Manitoba. 

The picturesque little town of Arundel is the seat 
of the Duke of Norfolk, into whose coffers we paid 
largess of four cents this morning at Shoreham toll- 
bridge. We had hoped to visit his magnificent pal- 
ace, Arundel Castle, but found that to do it we would 
have to wait over until to-morrow, for Mondays and 
Fridays are the open days. The dukes are very 
good-natured to open their homes to the public at 
all, so we did not utter maledictions. Having been 



A.6 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

present at a few of these public openings elsewhere, 
and witnessed the conduct of some of the visitors, we 
had come to the conclusion that were we in posses- 
sion of a ducal estate we should be inclined to keep 
the crowd out every day in the year. 

At perhaps a majority of English show-places fees 
are charged of twelve or twenty-five cents per head, 
at which tourists, particularly American tourists, are 
apt to complain, saying it betokens a niggardly spirit 
on the part of my lord. The fee, however, it seems 
to me, is quite proper ; it keeps out the worst ele- 
ment of the unsympathetic rabble, who could not 
easily be controlled, and on whom it were useless 
to waste time ; and it goes towards the extra expense 
of maintaining servants especially for the work of 
showing the place to strangers, and the keeping in 
repair those portions of the grounds and buildings 
which the public wish especially to see, and yet 
which the owner might not wish to maintain merely 
for his* own gratification. 

The quaint old town, cut in twain by the graceful 
river Arun, is nestled closely at the foot of a pre- 
cipitous eminence surmounted by the curtains and 
bastions of the fortress. From within these stout 
bulwarks the massive castle rears its crenellated walls 
and towers, its twelfth-century keep still intact and 
seeming to grin defiance to the assaults of time. 

It did not take long to exhaust, in the tourist ac- 
ceptation of the term, the other lions of Arundel, — 
the parish church of 1380, and the modern Roman 
Catholic church, which the present devout duke has 
built at a cost of half a million dollars ; but Arundel 
is such a delightfully fascinating place, and the Arun's 



In the Heart of the South Downs. 47 

canoeing possibilities so apparent, that we were sorely 
tempted to stay over, and yet for various reasons did 
not. Surely we must go again to Arundel. 

Unable to see the castle to-day, we added several 
miles to our journey by wheeling through the duke's 
park. The lodge-keeper's daughter, a short-skirted, 
pink-faced rustic beauty, opened for us the great gate, 
and interestedly gave directions as to the best route 
through the labyrinth of drives. Her eyes sparkled 
with pleasure as she courtesied in acknowledgment of 
our modest tip, and her thoughts were doubtless of 
the bright ribbon she could now buy for her wealth 
of flaxen hair. 

Arundel is one of the most delightful parks in all 
England. Such vistas of forest and meadow, hill and 
vale ! In scenes such as this, the English masters of 
the palette have found inspiration. They can be 
pictured with the brush, but not with the pen ; here 
words are too weak. One reads a great deal, par- 
ticularly in American journals, about the hardship 
resulting from the English nobility turning so much 
of the country into great parks that yield nothing, and 
there are people who would like to see this noble old 
island cut up into small holdings. For my part, I 
cannot sympathize with such utilitarian aspirations. 
These are beauty-spots, heavenly places, rescued from 
the humdrum world. Here the English sense of the 
beautiful is developed, the heart cultivated, the soul 
trained. England would no longer be Old England if 
the great estates were divided among peasant proprie- 
tors ; it is a condition of affairs said to be coming, but 
I am pleased to believe that it will not be in my day. 

A baronial park is almost as much the public's as 



48 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

the baron's ; the former use it quite as frequently as 
the latter, and doubtless find the greater pleasure in 
doing so, because without expense or responsibility. 
In the maintenance of an estate like Arundel, a large 
number of servants are employed, — stewards, land- 
scape-gardeners, road-makers, foresters, game-keepers, 
herdsmen, ostlers, coachmen, and miscellaneous la- 
borers. It is a question whether there are not almost 
as many individuals thus employed as could find 
occupation upon the same territory in the capacity of 
peasant proprietors, and very likely at better re- 
muneration with less toil. I do not have at hand any 
statistics to bear me out, but I am inclined to believe 
that such is the case. Now, if some professional 
economist should chance to read my cycling journal, 
I imagine he will sniff at this, and compare such 
argument to the familiar doctrine of the utility of the 
charity ball as an industrial factor, which is the man- 
of-straw daily knocked down in college class-rooms. 
Granted, that whereas all these people are thus prof- 
itably employed, the land remains comparatively 
unproductive ; yet so long as hundreds of good Eng- 
lish farms are lying waste in the present agricultural 
depression, vainly begging for tenants, and so long as 
these beauty-spots are popular educators and help to 
make England attractive to foreign tourists who pour 
out their money here, I am sure the majority of 
Englishmen are justified in looking, as they do, with 
complacency on the great estates of the nobles. I 
myself, as becomes a native American, have little rev- 
erence for monarchs or nobles, but I do enjoy their 
demesnes, and count them useful as conservators of 
historical monuments. 



/// the Heart of the South Downs. 49 

To the north, Arundel Park culminates in a hill, 
rising probably four hundred feet above the fertile 
plain which from its base stretches farther north- 
ward for many a mile. The Arun, glistening like 
molten silver down there in the bright sunshine, 
winds and twists through the scene, now and then hid- 
den by a patch of woodland in the foreground. Row- 
boats upon its surface look like walking-stick bugs, 
and cattle grazing on the brink are but dark blotches. 
Turning to the southwest, we are in the road styled 
Fair Mile Bottom, — a rocky zigzag of two and a half 
miles, leading down to the Chichester highway. On 
our way we bowl past herds of the duke's fallow deer, 
clumps of shaggy Scotch cattle, a group of humped 
cattle from India, and sheep that doubtless have won 
for their noble master many a prize in this land of 
mutton, — all peacefully grazing in sunny glades under 
the charge of herdsmen. 

The sun now hung low over the western downs, and 
a cooling sea-breeze set in to help us along the smooth 
white road. The sense of moving so swiftly and with 
so slight an effort was something akin to wh|t perhaps 
we may yet live to experience in flying-machines. 

Two and a half miles from Chichester, the little 
village of Boxgrove, a half-mile off the main road, 
looked especially inviting, even for this enchanted 
land, as in the soft twilight it loomed up across the 
level fields to the right, with its timbered houses, 
thatched roofs, and graceful spire. Thus tempted, 
we turned aside to visit this ideal hamlet, approaching 
it through an elm-arched lane that might well have 
been the avenue to a palace. 

Midway we met a tall, mild-mannered man in mid- 
4 



50 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

die life, with a white smock and a shepherd's crook, 
followed by a collie. Behind them came a hundred 
sheep, freshly shorn, now stopping for a last nibble on 
the juicy hedge-banks, now scampering forward like 
children fearful of being left behind. Shepherd 
stopped to chat a moment with us, the collie sedately 
showing his teeth at such of his wards as ventured too 
closely to press upon their guardian's heels. It was a 
pretty sight, after we had passed on and turned for a 
final look, to see the flock eagerly dash forward to 
a wayside pond, and in company with the collie slake 
their thirst, the gentle shepherd contemplatively lean- 
ing against the trunk of an overspreading elm. 

We tarried so long to talk with the rustics, and to 
admire Boxgrove's Early English priory church, — its 
vaulting is finely painted and decorated, — that it was 
well for us the twilight is now so protracted. To make 
up for lost time, we bowled right swiftly on from Box- 
grove, past several pretty wayside inns and a number 
of well-appointed estates, till the rugged outlines of 
Chichester's time-worn cathedral stood sharply against 
the rosy-l^nted sky, with broad meadows intervening. 
The rippling water of the river Lavant, which the 
highway follows into town, was strewn with green 
leaves and boughs of may, as though some one higher 
up the stream was hedge-clipping after hours. The 
streets of quiet little antiquated Chichester were almost 
deserted as we rode along in the gloaming, now and 
then a butcher's lad making his last delivery, or a 
group of cotters' families gossiping by the narrow 
footpath, or the lamp-lighter going his rounds. 



CHAPTER III. 

CHICHESTER, GOODWOOD, AND MIDHURST. 

TV/TIDHURST, Sussex, Friday, 2 9 th. There ap- 
^ VJ - pears no need of setting down in my journal 
any particulars of what we did at Chichester this 
morning. We can read all about it in the numerous 
guide-books when we get home, if our memories 
need refreshing ; yet it seems now as though here 
were imprinted brain-pictures which can never be 
effaced ; here were impressions gained which will 
never grow dim. From the summit of the detached 
bell-tower we had the most comprehensive view. The 
city (eight thousand inhabitants) is a jumble of red- 
tiled roofs, with the old gray Norman cathedral tow- 
ering far above them. All around, beyond the an- 
cient city walls, still for the most part intact, flat 
green fields stretch away for many miles ; and through 
them we see the Lavant, merely a meadow-creek, 
winding its lazy way. 

From Lewes to Chichester we had been proceeding 
westward, following the coast by highways from two 
to a half-dozen miles inland. Our path to Alton 
(Hants), by the way of Midhurst and Petersfield, was 
henceforth to be north and west. 



52 Cur Cycling Tour in England. 

Early this afternoon we retraced for a mile the 
broad white Arundel road along the Lavant, and then 
turning to the left wheeled northward through shady 
lanes and on by-roads to Goodwood House, the su- 
perb seat of the Duke of Richmond. Learning at 
the lodge that the ducal family were away, we made 
arrangements to visit the mansion, only open to the 
public in their absence, which fortunately is frequent 
The housekeeper was at lunch, however, and we were 
obliged to await her pleasure. 

In front of the stables, which in exterior design 
might well have done duty for a gentleman's country 
house, a knot of jolly young ostlers were making 
merry over the frantic efforts of one of their fellows 
to learn to ride a safety bicycle. Actuated either by 
native politeness, or a desire for a tip, perhaps by 
both motives, one of the men came forward, and 
touching his cap, begged that we would allow him to 
care for our machines within, while we were inspect- 
ing the mansion and its grounds. Thus unencum- 
bered, we passed a pleasant hour beneath the beeches 
and in the garden. Men were carefully rolling the 
great level lawn in front of the house, some dozen 
acres in extent, in preparation for a neighborhood 
cricket match to be held there to-morrow. Through 
the beech grove scampered a flock of bleating sheep, 
racing for a pond, their shepherd and his dog not far 
behind. Here and there groups of fancy cattle, 
guarded by keepers, made pretty pictures ; a Scotch 
bull, with shaggy hair almost sweeping the ground, 
stood on a rocky hillock just without a copse, ner- 
vously sniffing the air, a worthy subject for Landseer. 

In due time we ascended the broad steps to Good- 



Chichester, Goodwood, and Midhnrst. 53 

wood House, which has a certain resemblance to our 
own White House, and on ringing the bell were soon 
face to face with the housekeeper, — a fine- looking 
woman of the upper serving class, in a black gown 
and a neat white cap. The furniture and decorations 
are of that rich and substantial character we are apt 
mentally to associate with baronial halls, their dignity 
perhaps enhanced by the housekeeper's subdued, def- 
erential tone, as she acts well her part of showman. 

The walls of the long line of stately apartments are 
thickly hung with family portraits of the Richmonds 
and the Portsmouths, in whose company also appear 
the more or less idealized lineaments of their several 
Stuart and Hanoverian sovereigns. The collection 
embraces some of the masterpieces of Van Dyck, 
Titian, Reynolds, Lely, Gainsborough, Kneller, 
Rubens, and Lawrence. So many of the faces had, 
in black-and-white reproductions, been familiar to us 
from childhood that it seemed as if we were suddenly 
waking up historic dead, suddenly to come upon them 
at every turn, looking at us like breathing humans 
from out their gilded windows. 

In glass cases too are relics of this storied throng. 
Here, a ring and a handkerchief worn to the scaffold 
by him whom the housekeeper, who knows her 
place, styles " the murdered Charles ; " there, a fan 
of this princess, the shoe-buckles of this sovereign, 
the jewelled sword of another ; in one casket, the 
autograph letter of a king to his dear friend, a Ports- 
mouth ; in another, a golden snuff-box given by some 
monarch who had tired of it to his faithful Rich- 
mond. Mere baubles these, for republicans to smile 
at, yet somehow they speak to us most eloquently 
of the past, and make English history more real. 



54 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

The Goodwood races, each July, are world-famous. 
Five or six weeks later, and Goodwood House, now as 
solemn as a historical museum, will be a scene of gay- 
ety. The Prince of Wales and his suite will be here 
for a week, with a jovial company of noble sportsmen. 
The park will be overrun with tens of thousands of 
the British public, afoot, on horseback, and in drags. 
Fortunes, plebeian and princely, will change hands 
daily. Dukes and tailors, bishops and gamblers, 
society queens and painted wantons, will for the 
nonce jostle one another in this hurly-burly, and 
the air will quiver with British shouts, democratically 
mingled. 

The race-course is in a natural amphitheatre at the 
summit of a hill some two miles north of the mansion. 
We had to push our machines up several steep grades 
before we reached it, but the retrospective views of 
the emerald plain of Chichester and the rolling Good- 
wood forest, as they unfolded, quite repaid us. The 
scene to the south and west from the grand stand was 
most superb, the country lying at our feet like a map 
of varied hues. 

This being my first English race-course, — though 

W had " done " the Goodwood races on a 

previous visit years ago, — it surprised me to find 
it literally green, springy sod. Used as I was to our 
bare tracks at home, I had never stopped to consider 
that the term " turf " as applied to American courses 
is an imported misnomer. In England, it seems, it is 
really "the turf." The verdant Goodwood track 
could only be traced from the grand stand by the 
occasional white quarter-posts straggling away over 
the gentle rises, the carpet of deep green unrelieved 



Chichester ; Goodwood, and Midhurst. 55 

save by ragged brown patches of gorse, hawthorn, and 
heather. 

I am not a horse man, but it seems to me that the 
Goodwood races, amid such noble natural surround- 
ings, and in the presence of so heterogeneous a Brit- 
ish throng as will soon be blackening these hillsides, 
must be quite inspiring, if one could but forget the 
gambling and the general demoralization, and look 
upon it all as merely a picturesque experience. 

We were so interested in the race-course that a 
sharp thunder-clap first warned us of an approaching 
storm from off the sea. A wall of rain came sweep- 
ing towards us, first obscuring the southernmost down, 
next Chichester plain and the cathedral, then the 
edges of Goodwood Park, later the wooded ravines 
below, and finally enveloping us, for the first time 
fully testing our mackintoshes, which we had hastily 
donned. 

The downpour was soon over, English fashion, and 
we were again in the saddle, descending a steep, 
rough hill-road to the duke's village of Charlton, 
An ostler in his shirt-sleeves, cleaning a harness in 
front of a small brick stable, informed me with un- 
disguised pride that in the villages of Charlton, East 
Dean, and Singleton — all three within sight of one 
another across the fields — the entire population were 
" the duke's servants, sir." 

If these people are proud of the duke, the duke in 
turn has reason to be proud of his villages. Charm- 
ing hamlets they are, with high street walls of dressed 
flints, beautiful partition hedges neatly trimmed, rows 
of box in the gay parterres, and vines clambering 
over the cottage walls. The roofs are artistically 



56 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

thatched, their prevailing brown and yellow tints va- 
riegated with moss and lichens, " hen and chickens," 
and clumps of curious little weeds bearing buff and 
scarlet blossoms. Some of the heavily timbered cot- 
tages in Charlton are evidently relics of the days of 
Queen Bess, and have known as masters a long line 
of ducal Richmonds. 

Crossing the pretty little stone bridge which spans 
the Lavant, here a meagre brook, we flash by the 
vicar, — tall, slender, broad-hatted, and clean-shaven, 
walking dreamily with his hands clasped behind his 
back. He pauses and looks at us with startled 
sadness, as it seems, for this rude intrusion of 
nineteenth-century progress upon eighteenth-century 
meditations. 

Up and down we go, over the easy grades of a 
well-made road. Now and then the rain comes 
without warning, and we suddenly unstrap our water- 
proofs ; but it is as quickly gone, and the sky for a 
time smiles so serenely that we are persuaded to imag- 
ine it will remain clear, English weather is so fickle. 

We flit through the cottage-lined street of quiet 
little Corking, between Westdean Wood and Heyshot 
Downs. At Dunsford hamlet we have a wide view 
of the valley of the Rother, — an affluent of the Arun, 
and not the Rother crossed in passing from Kent 
into Sussex. Soon, as we spin along, the roofs and 
church tower of old Midhurst town peer above the 
trees carpeting a small hill beyond the river; and 
then, on reaching the brow of the ridge which our 
highway has till now followed, we have the green 
valley temptingly spread out below us, flecked with 
the shadows of passing clouds. 



Chichester, Goodwood, and Midhurst. 57 

Coasting under an overhanging bank, rich in 
mosses, vines, and wild-flowers, and corded with 
the projecting roots of trees, we passed groups of 
laborers — men, women, and children — descending 
from the upper fields to their valley homes. Each 
bore a luncheon-basket, and tools of rural toil, — 
forks, hoes, bills, and rakes. They seemed a merry 
company, chattering on the way, but we noticed how 
silent they grew as we approached, gently tinkling 
our bells as the law demands. There was evident 
an abundance of curiosity, but the demeanor of these 
people was quiet and respectful, with no apparent 
staring. 

" Warm welcome " met us at our inn, under whose 
arch we passed just as the sun was setting in the 
ruddy west. Since dinner we have been wandering 
about the town, which seems under the influence of 
a spell in these soft twilight hours. Tourists occa- 
sionally come here for an hour or so to view the 
ruins of Cowdray House, — a sixteenth-century man- 
sion of splendid proportions, burned in 1793; but 
Midhurst has much to interest the intelligent trav- 
eller besides Cowdray ruins, picturesque though 
they be. 

There are scores of quaint timbered houses of the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, their projecting 
upper stories long ago warped out of plumb, nodding 
familiarly to each other over the narrow ways. The 
free grammar school, a pleasant, vine-covered old 
house on the high street, was founded in 1672 "for 
twelve boys to be instructed in Latin and Greek, 
and in writing and arithmetic, if they be capable 
to learne." The little parish church, with its pile 



58 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

of monuments of the Montague family, — lords of 
the manor from before the days when New England 
was first heard of, — is in the centre of the town, and 
looks well worthy of an hour's attention to-morrow 
morning. 

The parish registers here come down to us in an 
unbroken line from 1565. We think this going back 
quite far enough ; really the records are compara- 
tively modern, for Midhurst, then in the midst of 
the Andredsweald, was deemed something of a town 
in Roman days, and at the time of the Norman Con- 
quest was " a considerable place." Although now 
numbering seventy-five hundred inhabitants, it is 
probably of less relative importance to-day than then. 
Quite early in the present century the place acquired 
some notoriety as a rotten borough, sending up two 
members from a population of little over one thou- 
sand ; and it was once said in a reform speech that 
" at Midhurst the very stones appeared as voters for 
members of Parliament." 

Our steps led us in course of time down to the 
river-side, where the stream is stoutly dammed to 
furnish power for a whiting-mill. Along the top of 
the dam runs a quaint old bridge. At its base is a 
timbered cottage, put together with wooden pins, 
and stuccoed upon exterior lath-work, as is the 
fashion with these ancient houses. Wrinkled and 
warped into wavy lines, clearly it is one of the old- 
est, if one of the most modest, dwellings in all Mid- 
hurst. A comely young woman, a laborer's wife, 
stood at the wicket, and by her, two children played 
at hide-and-seek in and out the little garden. In 
the advanced twilight the mill-pond had a purplish 



Chichester, Goodwood, and Midhurst. 59 

hue as it reflected the fading color of the clouds ; and 
downstream, the deep-cut rustic gorge, overhung with 
beeches and yews, was suggestive of mystery. 

We stopped to gossip with the young mother, who 

was evidently pleased to have us do so. W , 

thinking of her own dear one, left for the summer far 
across seas, caressed the curly-headed boy, and 
asked his age. " Oh, m-am ! he be a jubilee boy, 
'e be, — born two days 'efore her blessit Majesty's 
jubilee I" 1 This is the first " jubilee boy" we have 
met, but we hear at the inn that all over England 
they are considered lucky youngsters, with a chance 
of being remembered in the queen's will. As there 
was quite as large a crop of British infants in 1887 
as in any other year of her Majesty's long reign, it 
will take a rare fortune to go round if these hopes are 
to be realized. 

On being asked how old her cottage was, the 
woman said, " Oh, it 's wery old, — one o' the holdest 
in Midhurst ; my 'usban's mother she were born in't, 
and she be seventy-eyte ! " This was doubtless in- 
tended to quite crush us with a sense of antiquity. 
In view of the fact that the house bore evidences of 
being at least three hundred years old, we but found 
in her assertion another example of the lack of his- 
torical conception on the part of her class. Fre- 
quently have we made similar inquiries along our way, 
and invariably had from the cottagers replies akin to 
this. Their notion of antiquity goes no farther back 
than their grandfather's memory. In this they re- 
mind me of a young New Orleans Creole, a cotton- 
factor's clerk, who was once piloting a few of us 
1 In 1SS7. The boy was four years old. 



60 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

around the French quarter of his native city. Sol- 
emnly pausing before the oldest historical monuments 
it could boast of, and striking an attitude, he would 
grandiloquently exclaim, " Zhentlemens, deese iz one 
of ze ol'est build'n in N'Orleans ! Eet was 'ere befo' 
I was born ! " 

Directed by our cottage friend, we passed through 
her garden and down some steps at the foot of the 
dam to a plank walk over the dwindled Rother, — the 
name of which stream, by the way, the woman did 
not know, although living almost over it. Through 
the centre is a long broad walk, lined by lofty yews, 
whose branches meet far overhead. In the gloaming, 
— a faint yellow light sifting in from the western sky, 
through the double rows of branchless trunks, — the 
effect was cathedral-like and indescribably impres- 
sive. Local tradition says that this was where Queen 
Anne loved to walk when visiting the Montagues of 
old ; and a moist hollow hard by, now nearly choked 
with weeds, is assigned as the site of a spring by 
whose side Anne often chose to have her luncheon 
served. I know not how true are these sayings of 
the village folk, but such things might well have been. 
As we emerged from the wood and sought Cowdray 
ruins before the prolonged twilight had wholly gone, 
we preferred not to be sceptics, but to count Anne a 
woman of goodly taste. 

Pressing on across a meadow, to where the Rother 
plainly once did duty as a moat, we stood in front of 
the massive gray walls of what was once one of the 
finest mansions in England. In an old history of 
Sussex, lying open before me, there is a plate show- 
ing that about 1812 the roofless structure was well- 



Chichester, Goodwood, and Midhurst. 61 

nigh perfect, with crenellations complete, and the 
windows of the great halls fully mullioned. Time 
has wrought great changes in eighty years. There 
are now many broad gaps and ragged outlines, 
heavily draped with ivy, while some portions are 
railed off and labelled " Dangerous." Cowdray ruins 
are certainly more picturesque now than they were 
two generations ago. They are weird enough to- 
night, out there in the fog-wrapped meadow, to build 
a romance on. Never before, I think, have I sighed 
for the art of the novelist. 

Alton, Hants, Saturday, 30th. We were down 
early at the Cowdray ruins, in Midhurst, this morning ; 
that is, early for England. In America, where the 
days would be thirty hours long if business men had a 
chance to revise the calendar, all but our largest 
towns are in full swing by eight o'clock, and even be- 
fore. Here in England, in London or out, the shop 
apprentices begin at nine to take down the shutters 
and sweep, while the proprietor puts in an appearance 
at ten or after. At five in the evening, four hours be- 
fore our shop-keepers in the " provinces " are con- 
tent to lock their doors, the English business day is 
over. Add to this a half-holiday each week, during 
which every shop in town is literally closed, and a 
" short afternoon " on Saturday, and you have a situa- 
tion of affairs which an American salesman would be 
inclined at first sight to style "a perpetual picnic." 

When we walked down the high street, just as the 
clock in the church tower was striking nine, the shut- 
ters were being removed from the shop windows, and 
it looked as though the town were just opening its 
eyes. 



62 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

The fog was lifting off the rich, verdant meadows 
surrounding Cowdray ruins, and the grassy paths were 
sopping wet. The cicerone is a motherly old woman 
in black, domiciled in a row of laborers' cottages 
hard by the massive gate. Her grandmother, she 
said, was in service there ninety-eight years ago, when 
the mansion was burned. She seemed proud that 
thus long had her family been keeping touch 
with the nobility. The walls are tottering in places ; 
two years ago a huge chimney collapsed, making a 
sad break, but since then no stones have fallen. We 
were shown, among other features, a tower room 
which had lodged Queen Elizabeth. There was a 
good deal of magnificence in the courts, banqueting- 
halls, and chapels of these grand old houses of the 
early time, but the bed-chambers always strike us as 
small, dark, and dreary, and often there were no 
means of heating them. V-shaped slits in the thick 
walls served as windows, and altogether they too 
closely resembled dungeon cells to suit our present 
tastes. The overhanging, sunny, lattice-windowed 
bedrooms of the timbered dwellings of the middle 
class were certainly more cheerful than these lone- 
some caves in which crowned heads and nobles were 
immured for safe keeping over night. 

There is much that is romantic in the history of 
Cowdray House. Built by the Earl of Southampton 
in the reign of Henry VIII. , it later passed into the 
hands of his celebrated half-brother, Sir Anthony 
Browne, grand standard-bearer of England, and de- 
scended to Browne's son, the first Viscount Montague, 
who greatly enlarged and embellished it. In its 
decoration Holbein participated, also Pellegrini; 



Chichester, Goodwood, and Midhurst. 63 

among the canvases were two Raphaels, and many 
from other masters, while some of the mural paintings 
were famous. These last were hidden from the 
iconoclasts of the Commonwealth by a coat of plaster 
hastily applied. 

Twice has Cowdray been visited by royalty, — once 
by Edward VI., in 1547, when Sir Anthony was the 
host ; and again by Queen Elizabeth, who was Monta- 
gue's guest in 15 91. A private letter by Edward has 
come down to us, in which he writes of " a goodly 
house of Sir A. Browne's, where we were marvelously, 
yea, rather excessively, banketted." Queen Bess, 
says a contemporaneous account, was " most royallie 
feasted " by Lord Montague ; " the proportion of 
breakfast was three oxen and one hundred and fifty 
geese," doubtless a more elaborate repast than that 
of which she partook under the great elm which we 
saw the other day in Northiam. There was a masque, 
too, for the virgin queen's entertainment at Cowdray, 
and many other gay doings, the reading of which 
sounds strange enough in our matter-of-fact age. We 
are told that, so pleased was the royal personage at 
this expensive foolery, " on going through the arbour 
to take horse for Chichester, her Majesty knighted 
six gentlemen." A queen can perform this miracle 
of transmuting common blood into noble, and thus 
delighting generations yet unborn, as easily as she 
brushes a fly from her palfrey's neck. 

I was pained on examining the local chronicles to 
find no trace of a visit to Cowdray from Queen Anne. 
How to reconcile this with Anne's Walk and Anne's 
Spring, which we visited last evening, I know not. 
Had she been here the fact would, I am sure, not have 



64 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

been overlooked by the parish historians ; and so we 
are forced to the conclusion that some less notable 
Anne must of old have haunted the yew-tree path, 
and had her picnics by the woodland pool. It is, 
however, a pity to spoil a pleasing tradition. 

In 1793, with the greater part of its artistic treas- 
ures, noble Cowdray was accidentally destroyed by 
fire. A few days later (the cicerone, more romantic 
than accurate, says on the same day) the owner — the 
last Viscount Montague — was drowned in attempting 
to shoot the falls of the Rhine. As he was unmarried, 
the property descended to a sister, whose heirs, bear- 
ing another name, are still in possession. Their small 
but beautiful modern house, Cowdray Lodge, is just 
visible a mile distant through the trees. 

The cavernous old kitchen, with its four monster 
fireplaces, in each of which an ox could have been, 
and doubtless at times was, roasted whole, is at pres- 
ent a mere lumber-room, its sole occupants being the 
guide's two Persian cats, ignobly tied to their kennels. 
The old woman met our protest at such treatment 
of her silken pets by saying it was her only means of 
keeping them at home ; if freed, they would wander 
beyond the quadrangle of the ruins, and be shot by 
the game-keepers as poachers. A cat too fond of 
pheasants' eggs is in England the special object of a 
game-keeper's detestation. 

Crossing what remains of the ancient moat, and 
taking a broad path, which is the descendant of what 
was once a noble approach to the gate of Cowdray, 
we again sought the town and the remaining lions. 
The church is not of great merit, but the tombs of the 
Brownes and the Montagues, considerably injured by 



Chichester \ Goodwood, and Midhurst. 65 

Cromwell's men, are interesting historical relics. The 
old gabled houses that one may meet on every hand, 
had lost none of their charm for us, now that the glare 
of day had succeeded the dreamy twilight in which 
they were at first invested. 

One particularly interesting antique is known as 
" Bacon House." It is tucked away in a crooked 
corner, — for Midhurst is not laid out on the checker- 
board plan, — and we found it necessary more than 
once to inquire the way. At the smartest-looking 
grocery in the high street, where we bought materials 
for a wayside lunch, no one knew of Bacon House. 
A salesman in a long white apron accompanied us 
to the • door, and pointing vaguely to the mouth of a 
neighboring alley, said, " They 's a lot o' hold rattle- 
trap properties areound there, zur, and likely as not 
the thing yer be a-lookin' for may be in the nyberhood, 
zur." Bacon House was there, sure enough, not a 
stone's throw away, just as represented in the popular 
photographs and paintings of Midhurst, and yet this 
shopful of grocerymen had never heard of it ! How- 
ever, we come across so many examples of this sort of 
thing over here that we are getting quite used to it. 
In a town full of " hold rattle-trap properties," as is 
Midhurst, perhaps the good people may be excused 
from having an intimate acquaintance with each indi- 
vidual specimen of the class. 

We were loath to leave Midhurst. It is the quaintest 
town we have yet been in. I fear we may seek long 
before finding its equal. It would have been a de- 
lightful experience to spend a week in this ideal spot, 
breathing its historic atmosphere, and gathering in- 
spiration from these survivals of the past. 
5 



66 Our Cycling Tour in Etigland. 

Hawthorne has somewhere said that it would take 
six human lifetimes thoroughly to "do" England, and 
we are now prepared to agree with him. Our pres- 
ent tour would be called " leisurely " by those who 
exhaust England in a fortnight, and yet our ever- 
present thought is that we are exhibiting unseemly 
haste. Seeing the people and the country at close 
range, as we do on our machines, temptations to lin- 
ger and see more daily beset us. We are often 
seized with a desire to turn aside from our prescribed 
path, and visit scenes the fame of whose surpassing 
beauty or historical association reaches us on our 
way ; but should we yield to these allurements we 
might spend the summer in a single county, for each 
seems packed with interesting objects. We can only 
flit like the bee, sipping sample sweets here and 
there. Sometime we may come back to dream in 
Midhurst, but this noon we must be on the wing. 

Tramping up the steep grade which leads out of 
Midhurst to the west, we had for company, just 
ahead of us, two Italians hauling a wheeled street- 
organ swathed in green cloth. A diminutive mon- 
key in cap and skirt was perched atop, shrilly chat- 
tering at a group of boys who mischievously poked 
sticks at the African stranger. At the hill-top, we 
mounted our wheels for a coast down the other 
side, leaving the rest of the procession to follow as 
best it might. 

Our path is rolling to-day, and we have frequently 
to walk. This is no hardship, for the valley views 
are soft and pretty, and we are glad to examine them 
at leisure. Peaceful hamlets repose at the feet of the 
hills, which latter are often well-covered with thorny 



Chichester, Goodwood, and MidhursU 67 

furze, now black from recent ground fires. A week 
or two hence these blackened stalks will be brilliant 
with yellow blossoms, rising from a dense carpet of 
purple heather. 

It is rather a barren stretch along the hill-road, 
from Stedham well-nigh to Petersfield. There is an 
absence of hedges and cultivated fields up here ; 
squatters' hovels, with stacks of furze about them 
for fuel, are just frequent enough to emphasize the 
desolation ; ragged children crowd to windows and 
rickety gates to see us ; pigs gruntle as we pass near 
their wallowing spots ; geese go hissing before us in 
the dust. This rustic squalor on the scorched and 
sandy hill-tops is in sharp contrast to the condition 
of affairs in the green, fair valleys below, and we are 
glad to be speeding on our way. 

We pass through Trotton, Turwick, Rogate, and 
Sheet, all of them mere clusters of cottages, each 
with its public-house, and in a cabin window here 
and there a small display of groceries and sweets to 
tempt the passer-by. At Rogate is a smith's shop, 
picturesquely set back from the road in the deep 
shade of some giant oaks. On the grass in front 
lie a score of prostrate tree-trunks stripped of their 
bark, and evidently well seasoned from years of ex- 
posure to the elements. This is the artisan's timber- 
yard. He slices off his own boards, as wanted, in the 
old-time saw-pit beside the shop, and like most of 
his fellow-craftsmen in the rural districts, cares little 
for quotations from the timber exchange. It is some- 
thing of an advantage, this being able to select the 
tree from which you would have your wagon or your 
chest of drawers constructed by this independent 



68 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

workman. As these country smiths conduct their 
shops, so were conducted their grandfathers' estab- 
lishments. What is the need of changing that which 
was well enough of old? Only the Americans wish 
the latest gimcracks that are going, and turn up their 
noses at their fathers' doings. 

There were broad views of tree- crowned ridges 
and green meadows as we crossed the border into 
Hampshire, and bowled down by easy stages into 
Petersfield. We saw but little of the town, for there 
is nothing more antiquated here than a big grammar 
school. At Langrish, a hamlet a few miles to the 
west on the Winchester road, we visited a large 
farmhouse, and spent, some hours most happily with 
friends. How genuine is English hospitality ! There 
is nothing like it in America, save the greeting one 
finds at the home of old-school country gentlemen 
in our Southern States ; and I fear even that may 
not last long, for we have a New South now, with 
Northern capital, native industries, and all that sort 
of thing, — very profitable, no doubt, but the lo- 
cal color is fading out in this blaze of materialistic 
sunshine. 

It is not a long run from Langrish to Alton, — 
only twelve miles, and over as fine roads as the 
sun ever shone upon. There is one hill to climb, 
and that in the beautiful park of Basing House, 
through which at the start we took a short cut, en- 
tering by " Langrish Gate" and emerging at " Alton 
Gate." 

East Tisted is one of the loveliest of Hampshire 
villages. To the left, stretching up a hill-slope, and 
fenced only by a few strands of wire, — a welcome 



Chichester, Goodwood, and Midhurst. 69 

relief from the customary high walls, — is the ideal 
park of Rotherfleld House. In the glades were 
groups of fancy cattle, the beautiful mansion of 
the squire peering over the trees beyond. The vil- 
lage opposite lies stretched along the smooth white 
road, a charming study of gracefully outlined roofs 
of yellow thatch, above which, in sharp contrast, 
rises the cold gray tower of the inevitable parish 
church. 

Camped by the wayside here, were a family of 
gypsies. Their gaudily painted van was hung with 
baskets, which they are hawking through the country. 
A span of gaunt horses grazed along the bank near 
by ; and the Rommany folk, big and little, were 
perched on the empty shafts eating an early supper 
composed largely of tinned comestibles. The mother 
was young, though with a plentiful progeny, and 

freely talked with W about her domestic affairs. 

She had rather pretty features, with a skin as dark 
as a quadroon squaw's, and gratified the taste of her 
race for cheap and gaudy ornaments. The wagon 
was her home, she said, and she had never known 
other; she felt sure she should suffocate if com- 
pelled to live in any of those cooped-up cottages 
over the way. Their life was free, without taxes, 
rents, or compulsory school- laws, and if they grew 
tired of one shire they could move to another, as 
indeed they were constantly doing. Peddling was 
their chief employ. In winter, they were tinkers, and 
made tin pails and pans for their itinerant trade ; in 
summer, they bought. baskets to sell again at a profit, 
and sometimes made clothes-pins if in a wooded re- 
gion. The Rommany beauty spoke proudly of this 



jo Our Cycling Tour in England. 

life,, which she deemed ideal, and no doubt thought 
that, as gypsying cyclists, we were envious of her 
career in a two-horse van. 

Just out of East Tisted we selected a green bank 
under a clump of fine elms as our lunching spot, and 
called at the door of a small neighboring farmhouse 
for milk. A young man of the better order of work- 
ing folk responded to our rap. He said he was alone 
in the house, and insisted that we bring our lunch 

into the parlor. W 's housewifely protests were 

of no avail, so we were soon established at the centre- 
table in this modest room. Our host deftly spread a 
copy of the " London Standard " as a crumb-cloth, and 
having brought a jug of milk and two glasses, grace- 
fully bowed himself out, leaving an invitation to stay 
as long as we liked, and rest. Through the window I 
noticed him, with pipe and newspaper, seated under 
a tree on the farther side of the little garden. It 
was admirably done, this bit of hospitality. We 
had had,' however, some experience over here in be- 
ing inveigled into the acceptance of service we did 
not need, and cannot be blamed, as we leisurely 
chatted over our suddenly glorified lunch, for dubbing 
this an ingenious method of extracting a shilling 
where twopence would otherwise have been sufficient. 
To our great surprise the young man seemed offended 
at the offer of coin, and was rather haughty until 
we apologized, when he turned it off as an amusing 
incident, and at the gate merrily bade us farewell. 
He is the first person of his class we have met 
in this land of tips to decline pay for services ren- 
dered. We learned later that he was a prosperous 
farrier. 



Chichester, Goodwood, and Midhurst. yi 

The villages of Farringdon and Chawton are not 
far beyond. On a road as smooth and firm as a floor 
we swiftly shot through them as the sun was setting, 
and soon were at Alton, where for a time we are to be 
domiciled with friends. 





CHAPTER IV. 



WITH HAMPSHIRE FOLK. 



A LTON, Hants, Sunday, May 31. We were with 
"^ our friends to-day at the old parish church. 
Like hundreds of its kind in England, it was bom- 
barded by Cromwell's soldiers ; and a brass tablet 
records the bravery of a certain Loyalist chief who 
stoutly defended himself within these walls, until 
finally killed in the south porch. They show you 
in the door of the porch dints made by Common- 
wealth bullets, and there are yet visible about the 
venerable building other scars of the conflict. It is 
astonishing how many sins are laid against Cromwell 
by custodians of the property of the Establishment. 
A nose off a statue, a shattered mullion, a broken al- 
tar, the destruction of mural paintings by whitewash 
or plaster, an absence of brasses from hollows where 
once they lay, or any conceivable disfigurement inva- 
riably is ascribed to the direct orders of the Protector. 
The Cromwellians must have been exceedingly busy 
despoilers during the short period of their supremacy 
if they did all that is charged to them. 



With H amps J tire Folk. 73 

In English churchyards one is sharply reminded 
of how fleeting a thing is human life and reputation. 
These have been the burying-grounds of the com- 
munity for centuries, or were until a few years 
ago, when the government stepped in to forbid addi- 
tional interments in grounds already filled. One 
generation was laid away on top of the preceding, 
which accounts for the yard often being considerably 
elevated above the adjoining land. You know that 
you are walking over layer after layer of human 
dust, and can coldly calculate how many feet deep of 
corpses there are. At first the lack of veneration 
over here in the Old World for the bones of preceding 
generations of men shocks Americans, whose grave- 
yards are as a rule of such recent origin that they 
have not yet forgotten the personality of the beings 
first buried there. In scores of rural cemeteries 
that I have examined in England, a slab standing in 
place with a date earlier than 1750 is rare, and this 
under the shadow of a Gothic church tower. The 
climate is partly to blame, but more than all is the 
indifference of survivors. Monumental slabs not over 
a century and a quarter old are freely used to mend 
the churchyard wall, or to serve as pavements for foot- 
paths. These frail memorials of the low-born dead 
lose their significance when the third generation 
comes on the scene. The recumbent marble effigies 
of the knights and ladies of the shire, which one often 
finds flanking the inner walls of the sanctuary, are 
more lasting ; but even they are mere curiosities now, 
and are, in many churches we have seen, rudely 
scribbled and scratched over with the names of sev- 
eral generations of tourists and village children. 



74 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

Alton is a characteristic Hampshire town of some 
five thousand inhabitants, — a centre of rural trade, 
with a railway station, large breweries, and some 
small manufacturing industries. The river Wey 
courses through the place. It is a mere creek from 
an American standpoint, but along its banks are some 
of the most beautiful rustic scenes we have met with, 
— woods and meadows, picturesque bridges and 
charming old mills, cattle and sheep peacefully graz- 
ing, clumps of graceful willows, and white daisies 
thickly studding the fields. 

Monday, June i. After lunch to-day we drove in a 
wagonette for some thirty miles, with our host and his 
family. Great hedges line much of the way. Beyond 
them lie green meadows, spangled with yellow butter- 
cups. Men are in the fields ploughing, and planting 
potatoes. In the hop-gardens, women and children 
are tying the vines. We are shown hop plants that 
are at least a hundred years old. Our host is the 
proud possessor of one garden which we pass, men- 
tioned in his grandfather's diary in 1798. Alton 
and Farnham hops are famous. It is, too, some- 
thing of a horse-breeding district, and from our 
road along the ridge we notice that frequently the 
pastures down below are dotted with mares and 
their foal. The Wey is glistening in the sunlight as, 
now overhung with willows and now great elms, it 
curves gently through the narrow valley. High on the 
upland beyond are cottages and wide- spreading farm- 
steads, and here and there such " hangers " — wood- 
lands on steep hillsides — as Gilbert White described 
when rector at neighboring Selborne. 

We have been through Anstey, Holybourne, and 



With HampsJnre Folk. 75 

Binsted, and now approach Alice Holt Wood, a sur- 
viving fragment of the Andredsweald. Our host has 
free entry over a private road. A half-mile within the 
gate is as dreamy a little pond set in the forest as 
any we have laid eyes upon. On the farther side, 
making a pretty picture with its sharp reflection in 
the pool, is the game-keeper's cottage. The keeper, 
a stout fellow in gray corduroy, comes forward with a 
brace of retrievers playfully leaping about him, ap- 
parently to challenge our entry, but upon recog- 
nizing the trap, turns and pretends to be busied 
with a coop of pheasant chicks, half hid in the tall 
grass. 

Alice Holt is a royal forest, and its twenty-seven 
hundred acres are carefully guarded by Her Maj- 
esty's rangers. In a pretty lodge lives the keeper's 
master, a gentleman who for a goodly rental hires 
the shooting in this belt of timber. Considerable 
cutting is being done here just now, on scientific 
principles of preservation, for forestry is an art in 
England. Wherever needed, new trees are planted 
each season, and none are felled save such as inter- 
fere with the growth of neighbors, have become 
seriously maimed in storms, or exhibit signs of decay. 
This is a bit of the primeval forest only in the sense 
of there having been trees here from the earliest his- 
toric times ; yet it is doubtful if there are many trees 
in the wood that have not been planted where they 
stand, or are over fifty years old. 

When an English forest-tree is felled, it is sawn off 
level with the ground, and at once stripped of its 
green bark, out to the tips of branches as small as 
one's thumb. The bark is carefully gathered into 



j6 0?ir Cycling Tour in England. 

wagons for transport to the tanneries ; the naked 
white trunk, bereft of its largest branches, is hung 
with chains from the axles of monster wheels, and 
eventually stands on end in some town timber-yard, 
or lies on the green fronting such a smith's shop 
as we saw the other day at Rogate. The small 
limbs, from the size of one's arm downward to the 
diameter of a finger, are trimmed with nicety; then 
they are sorted into bundles of similar size and length 
which when neatly bound with withes go into the 
market as material for all manner of small wooden 
articles, such as chair-backs, handles, brush-backs, and 
matches. The twigs and brush, in America merci- 
lessly consigned to the bonfire, are themselves sorted 
into withes and fagots. Nothing that is wood is lost, 
not even the hedge trimmings. To one familiar with 
the wasteful fashion of American lumber-camps, — by 
the way, the English smile at our use of the word 
" lumber," which by them is applied only to rubbish, 
— this extreme care and precision of English forestry 
practice is full of interest. When wood in America 
has become as scarce as it is in England, we shall be 
practising the same cautious methods. 

South of Alice Holt is Dockenfield, a considerable 
hamlet of squatters, nestled in a pretty vale. In early 
days, land was cheap, with plenty to spare, and for 
various economic and political reasons there was from 
time to time a shifting of rural populations ; wander- 
ers would build their huts in retired spots and settle 
down anew. In time, if undisturbed by the lord of the 
manor, they acquired users' rights, which were market- 
able ; thus their holdings gradually came into the hands 
of others, so that these cottagers of the present day, 



With Hampshire Folk. jj 

though still styled squatters, have irrevocable freehold 
rights. This sort of squatter acquisition was the sub- 
ject of prohibitory legislation forty years ago, and has 
not since been permissible. 

English scenery is full of surprises. It is a conti- 
nent in miniature. We have thus far, in short distance, 
been over fens and plains and rolling downs, through 
heavy forests and darkling lanes, threading sweet 
valleys and fertile meadows, and now there is reserved 
for us a blasted heath. To the east of Dockenfield 
lie great stretches of wild land, studded with thorny 
furze and carpeted with heather, — later, to be a roll- 
ing wilderness of yellow and purple bloom, but now 
indescribably black and dreary. Here and there, in 
damp little nooks sheltered by lichen-covered rocks, 
ferns luxuriate, the delicate waving fronds contrasting 
strongly with their sombre surroundings. 

In the centre of the wilderness is Frensham Pond. 
It is elliptical in form, three miles in circumference, 
and set in a basin whose sloping rim of dingy brown 
is relieved by great gashes of exposed white sand, 
which men were at work loading into carts. The pond 
is a considerable summer resort for Hampshire folk, 
and a small fleet of sail and row boats is now idly 
anchored off the pier of a summer hotel. I should 
imagine that when the gorse and heather are gay with 
blossom, this heath might be a cheerful playground 
for the people ; at present it is rather awesome. 

After a pleasant tea in the hotel, we found agreeable 
walks in the neighborhood, and I chatted by the way- 
side with two gentlemen friends of our host, one of 
whom had two sons in Nebraska, and in consequence 
displayed a fair understanding of "The States." He 



78 Our Cycfaig Tour in England. 

knew his Bryce, and talked intelligently of political 
and social problems in America. 

The drive home in the evening was most charming. 
Frequently making short cuts, we often were in some 
of the hollow lanes which White has made famous. 
Narrow ways they are, well hedged, and deep worn, — 
partly by centuries of travel, but still more because 
they are the open drains of the country, and have 
been gullied by the floods of a thousand years. 
Where dark and damp and mayhap bowered by 
overhanging copse they are the home of the fern 
and the ivy ; in the sunny stretches may be found 
the wild-flowers of the district, while in hedge and 
copse are birds' nests without number. Happy hunt- 
ing-grounds these for botanists and ornithologists. 

At Kingsley, a neighborhood of farmhouses too 
thinly scattered to be called a hamlet, we peered 
through the windows of an abandoned church, the 
smallest we have seen on the island. The chancel is 
perhaps six feet square; the few pews have high, 
straight walls, and there is a crude stone font, unmis- 
takably of the reign of John. I know a certain Ameri- 
can historical museum that would be proud enough 
to have on exhibition that ancient font, and I was so 
wicked as to regret that it was too ponderous to steal. 
W thought she discovered the grave of an an- 
cestor in the diminutive, heaped-up churchyard ; but 
before she could sketch the fragment of a slab, rain 
fell, and we regained our seats in the trap. 

At Binsted, a thoroughly rustic village of the olden 
sort, the curate came out to greet the party, and in- 
vited " the Americans " to see his church. The rain had 
ceased ; but darkness was fast settling upon us, and we 



With Hampshire Folk. 79 

hardly did justice to the many historic treasures under 

the charge of Mr. W , who is a refined, scholarly 

gentleman, and a well-versed antiquarian. There are 
many such in the English Church, along with others 
who are not so creditable to the Establishment. 

Tuesday, 2d. We visited our host's Millcourt farm 
to-day. It is a beautiful combination of hill, valley, 
stream, and wooded lane. There are some fine horses 
there, of which I took several photographs. The rest 
of the day was spent in walks along the river Wey, 
and in visiting the town. We were much interested, 
among other things, in the Mechanics' Institution, 
which supports a public library, lecture- hall, and mu- 
seum, and in many ways exerts a beneficent influence 
in the community. 

Wednesday, 3d. In the morning our host took me 
in his dog-cart on a most delightful roundabout drive. 
We explored several hollow and rocky lanes, stopped 
to see a party of men ploughing one of his fields by 
steam-power, visited a great beech-tree, which, four 
feet above the ground, is twenty-one feet in circum- 
ference, and wound up with a general inspection of 
operations on Millcourt Farm. 

A curious old barn at Millcourt, bearing a sculptured 
inscription to the effect that it was built for a monas- 
tery in 1687, was an interesting relic. One meets at 
every turn such practical evidences as this of the great 
age of all he sees. To an American, born in a land 
where monuments of human occupation are compara- 
tively new, these things seem more impressive than to 
the English, who have grown up in an atmosphere of 
antiquity. This Millcourt barn was built in the year 
of the Connecticut "Charter Oak " incident, when 



80 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

Andros was governor of New England. Many things 
have happened in the world since then. 

With a wagonette full of merry folk, — why is it that 
the English are represented as " taking their pleasures 
sadly " ? — we had a grand drive this afternoon. Our 
path lay through Chawton, Farringdon, and East 
Tisted — friends of last week — out to the great hill 
known as Old Lytton. Boldly jutting out to the north 
from a long range of downs, it commands a sweep of 
country embracing three quarters of the circling hori- 
zon. We were assured we were looking into several 
shires. It is certain we could count the spires of 
parish churches by the dozen in this grand pano- 
rama of hill and vale, and detect villages and hamlets 
on every hand, — vermilion splashes in billows of 
greenery. 

It is needless to add that we had lunch on Old 
Lytton, — Englishmen always lunch on the slightest 
provocation, and we had come prepared for two re- 
pasts of this character. Under the shelter of a hedge, 
back from the wind-swept bluff, we spread our 
cushions and cloths in the grassy lane, opened the 
hamper, and were at once the envy of a shepherd 
boy, who with his collie guarded the Lytton flock, 
and furtively watched us through a hole in the hedge. 
It required but slight encouragement from the ladies 
to induce the lad to come to the opening for a lib- 
eral supply of bread and buns, and later for a cup 
of cold tea. His mumbled "Thankee, mum!" as 
he wiped his mouth with the back of a great brown 
hand, had a cheery note in it, and it was evident he 
considered the entertainment a rare feast. 

Not far away, towards Petersfield, is Stoner Hill, 



With Hampshire Folk. 81 

where a superb drive zigzags down through a ravine, 
the steep, corrugated slopes of which are crowded 
with lusty forest-trees, — beech, lime, oak, aspen, 
maple, and horse-chestnut. The road is a fine bit of 
engineering, and through gaps in the lower wall of 
foliage are bewitching views of forest, dell, and glade, 
kaleidoscopic in variety of form and color. 

At the villages of Steep, Liss, and Greatham, we 
had pictures of rustic life quite undisturbed by modern 
progress : the quaint wayside inns, with swinging 
signs on which are depicted creatures unknown to any 
standard work on natural history, — blue lions, red 
swans, and flying dragons ; the laborers, with straps 
below their knees to allow their trousers to bag, and 
thus facilitate stooping ; the long, cumbrous farm- 
wagons, high at front and back like a Norse Viking 
barge, and each with its owner's name conspicuously 
painted on the head-board and along the side, — a 
police regulation, so that the carter may be identified 
in case of accident ; mechanics tramping homeward 
at the supper hour, with their tools in coarse, flat 
baskets slung at back ; red-coated huntsmen and 
whips, out in the cool evening on their trim hunters, 
exercising the straggling pack in a sharp dash along 
the highway; and men and women at work, aft#r 
hours, in the "allotment patches," — little strips of 
kitchen-gardens hired from the squire, on the out- 
skirts of the villages. 

At Woolmer, we enter the black moorland again, 
which in the twilight looks dreary enough, as it stretches 
afar off to the dark horizon on the east. The hamlet, 
a scattered community of squatters, often housed in 
uninviting hovels, is hard by a pond and surrounding 
6 



82 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

marsh, said to be a favorite resort for black-cock and 
other game. Our host, like most Englishmen of his 
class, dotes on sport, and tells us many a tale of mild 
adventure on the Woolmer moor. 

Earl Selborne's estate is just at hand, as we turn 
westward towards home. His Lordship must have 
spent a goodly fortune in his not altogether successful 
efforts to make a section of this wilderness blossom as 
the rose. His house and grounds are finely laid out 
and planted, but the underlying sand gleams through 
uninvitingly at every chance. 

There was time enough left before darkness set in 
fully to do justice to the neighboring village of Sel- 
borne, made classic ground by Gilbert White, rector 
and naturalist. It is pleasing to learn that the scene 
of his lifework is still largely visited by his admirers, 
English and American, and that his " Natural History 
of Selborne " retains its hold upon the book-market. 

TJiursday, ^th. The arrangement inaugurated at 
Canterbury, for shipping our trunk and bag ahead of 
us by rail, works well, and is a great comfort. We 
sent them on again to-day, hoping for an early start 
on the road to-morrow. 

With a pair of ponies attached to the wagonette 
we had our last drive this afternoon, and covered 
thirty-live miles to Aldershot and Farnham (in 
Surrey) and back. It is good to know that the 
spirited little beasts will have a rest of several days 
after this, although they looked ready enough, after 
the groom had rubbed them down to-night, to start 
on another long journey. 

We had a comprehensive view of the rolling Aider- 
shot country from the high ridge known as the Hog's 



With Hampshire Folk. 83 

Back. The town itself, laid out on a broad plain be- 
low, is smart and commonplace. Her Majesty's scar- 
let and gold are conspicuous everywhere in the street 
crowds, and lend brilliancy to the scene. The town 
has grown up about the great camp, now several miles 
square and capable of accommodating twenty thou- 
sand soldiers. The central barracks are interesting, 
their especial features being glass-roofed arcades be- 
tween the several buildings, for drilling under in wet 
weather. English troops present a noble appearance 
en masse, being well drilled and rather gorgeously 
attired. Taken individually, however, the men are 
much the same as in other armies, in the main raw 
country youths, with apparently few ideas beyond the 
tactics, and looking awkward in uniform. Privates of 
the Grenadiers, the Horse Guards, the Black Watch, 
and a few other regiments whose men are picked, 
are, when apart from their fellows, rather glorified by 
their military clothes, but they are exceptions. Eng- 
lish officers, on the other hand, are for the most 
part fine-looking gentlemen, who will stand personal 
inspection in full-dress uniform, and duly impress 
you. 

Farnham (seven thousand inhabitants) is the centre 
of a hop-growing district which is second in impor- 
tance to Kent alone. Wherever you look, the land- 
scape is black with poles, — up the hill-slopes, down 
in the valley, crowding to the very back doors of the 
houses, stretching off in all directions, till your head 
fairly swims at the sight of this great forest of sticks. 

At Farnham is a castle which has a keep of the 
thirteenth century, but the greater part of the pres- 
ent structure dates from the Commonwealth period ; 



84 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

the moat is well-preserved, and one of the best we 
have seen. We had a most delightful walk through 
the large park, which has some grand oaks and 
beeches of great antiquity and a considerable herd 
of tame deer. The townsfolk use the park with 
the utmost freedom as a recreation-ground ; but the 
castle, now the palace of the Bishop of Winchester, 
is open to the public only in the absence of the 
episcopal family. 

The Bush Inn, where the ponies were baited while 
we were walking about Farnham, is a thoroughly 
characteristic English country tavern of the larger 
sort, and its arrangements strongly reminded me 
of familiar descriptions of such in Dickens and 
Thackeray. Our host kindly introduced me in the 
courtyard to a number of leading farmers of the 
country-side, bright, talkative gentlemen, the most 
of them rotund and jolly, possessed of an intelligent 
curiosity about America, but nevertheless frequently 
confounding " The States " with Canada, — not al- 
ways sure which is the most important, — and appar- 
ently ranking us in dignity with Cape Colony and 
Australia. They read the "London Standard" before 
breakfast every morning, support Lord Salisbury to a 
man, and grumble at a free-trade policy which allows 
American beef and grain — " wretched poor stuff, you 
know ! " — to compete with honest British products 
and thus ruin the agricultural interests. 

It will be hard to tear ourselves from such sur- 
roundings as we have been luxuriating in these past 
five days. We have met a host of pleasant people. 
Our days have been spent in walks and drives in 



With Hampshire Folk. 



85 



Hampshire streets, through Hampshire lanes, and over 
Hampshire downs ; our evenings in delightful social 
gatherings. We have been here long enough to be- 
come attached to folk and town. To resume our 
journey to-morrow morning, again to lodge among 
strangers, will be something akin to leaving home ; 
and possibly Fate may never again turn our steps 
this way. 





CHAPTER V. 



WINCHESTER AND THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 



1 17 INCHESTER, Friday, June 5. It was eleven 
* * o'clock this morning when, amid a chorus 
of farewells at the lodge gate, we mounted our ma- 
chines and had a merry spin for a few miles, out 
through Alton and Chawton, and over the Winchester 
road to the foot of Ropley Hill. Our host persisted 
in following us thus far in his dog-cart, and gave us 
and our wheels a ride to the summit. It was most 
welcome assistance, for Ropley presents a stretch of 
stiff up-grade for fully three miles. Left to ourselves, 
we henceforth had a good road, chiefly with down- 
grades, right into Winchester, which is eighteen miles 
from Alton. 

In an hour and a half, with several stoppages, 
we were at New Alresford (pronounced Aw/sfW), 
somewhat over halfway. Here we hunted up other 
friends, and two hours were spent in dinner and visit- 
ing, — a pleasant episode in a cycling day. There is 
pretty scenery hereabout, with heavy woodlands, 
numerous ponds and springs, and a rare luxuriance of 



Winchester and the Isle of Wight. Sj 

vegetation. The peaceful Itchen, known to every 
English angler as one of Izaak Walton's streams, has 
its rise in this region. I found bits along its bank 
which I was glad to catch in my camera during some 
brief glimpses of sunlight, — to-day has been cloudy, 
as a rule, with frequent spats of rain. 

We had some odd-named villages on our path this 
afternoon, — Itchen Stoke, Itchen Abbas, Martyr 
Worthy, Abbot's Worthy, King's Worthy, and Head- 
born Worthy. Delightful little places are the most 
of these, with beautiful suburban villas in the neigh- 
borhood ; occasionally a small factory ; cheerful 
thatched and red-tiled cottages ; not a few smart 
country shops ; tasteful, vine-covered middle-class 
houses, in narrow plats, intrenched by high walls and 
solid wooden gates, each bearing some fanciful name, 
for everything better than a laborer's cottage is 
labelled in England. Rose Villa, Woodbine Lodge, 
Maplehurst, Beechwood, The Cedars, are favorites ; 
while Trafalgar, Balaklava, and Tell-el-kebir, tell the 
story of retired officers on half-pay, here spending the 
balance of their days in rustic peace. 

At half-past five o'clock we were in Winchester 
(twenty thousand inhabitants). The old cathedral 
city, which has been a place of note since before the 
Roman invasion, has an inviting look, as from King's 
Worthy we see it perched afar off on a chalky hill- 
slope, the Itchen softly flowing at its feet. 

Our inn is The George, — there must be thousands 
of George Inns in England. It is a time-honored 
hostelry, recently fitted with modern conveniences, 
but yet retaining the architectural features for which 
old English inns have long been celebrated in song 



88 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

and story. There is something so delightful about 
these coaching taverns of the olden style that one 
loves to linger over them in description ; and we daily 
leave them regretful that the hour of parting has 
come, and that we may not hope to sit at their boards 
again for these many years. 

Winchester Cathedral by twilight is singularly im- 
pressive. It is of such enormous size and simple 
grandeur as to strike the beholder with awe. We 
thought the southwest view from the deanery rather 
the best of all. 

The Itchen is not far away. On the right is a 
broad footpath running with the narrow stream, and 
beyond it are pretty cottages set back amid flower- 
gardens. To the left, the high walls of villas come to 
the river's edge, and now and then rustic bridges lead 
from the footpath over to their carefully fastened 
gates, giving an air of social exclusiveness. Over the 
railing which protects the path, a hundred or more 
men and boys were angling for trout, — not in the 
secluded fashion of gentle Izaak, but noisily and with 
much contention, for there was at once a crowding 
to the spot whence a fish had just been landed, and a 
rivalry for standing-ground, in the hope to catch his 
companions. We had one of the Itchen trout for 
supper. It is quite different from the speckled 
brook trout of America, and we thought by no means 
so delicate. 

Sandown, Isle of Wight, Saturday, 6th. At Win- 
chester this morning our first visit was to the Hospital 
of St. Cross. At the porter's lodge we leaned over 
the half-door and applied for the dole of bread and 
ale, which since the twelfth century has here been 



Winchester and the Isle of Wight. 89 

dealt out to every wayfarer who seeks it before the 
daily quantum is exhausted. The bread was fair, — 
we have not yet found poor bread in England, — but 
the ale was of the kind not calculated to induce the 
wayfarer to apply twice. The porter's wife was in 
charge, and seeing that she was excited and appar- 
ently in great sorrow, we asked the cause of the 
brown-gowned guide to whom she assigned us. 
" 'Er 'oosban' be bad, poor chap, an' not loike to be 
better ! " Later we learned that he was " in a dyin' 
way." It seems a snug refuge, here at St. Cross, for 
human craft worsted in the storms of life ; but Death 
is close at hand for those who enter, and they are 
ever in the shadow of the tomb. 

In 1 1 36 Bishop Henry of Blois instituted this hos- 
pital as a home for thirteen poor men, who were to 
be well-fed in the fashion of that day, among their 
allowances being " a gallon and a half of good small 
beer per diem" and with it a certain amount of 
" wastel-bread " or ale-cakes, — Shakespeare has fond 
reference to " cakes and ale." As a matter of fact 
there are now seventeen resident "brothers," — 
thirteen in brown gowns, on the " old foundation " 
of Blois, and four black-gowned brothers, who are 
maintained on some more recent endowment. In 
addition to these, one hundred indigent Winchester 
men of good character receive outdoor relief in the 
form of food, which is doled out to them daily at the 
hospital kitchen, to be taken to their homes. Our 
brown-gowned guide, a cheery old man of seventy- 
two, looked quite distinguished in his tall silk hat, 
graceful robe decorated with a large silver cross hung 
from a ribbon on his breast, and neatly polished 



90 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

shoes ; but he was a masculine Mrs. Malaprop. He 
informed us, for instance, that the resident broth- 
ers must be communicants of the Church of Eng- 
land, but " houtsoide relievers moight be of any 
demonstration." 

The institution founded by Blois was at first man- 
aged by the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem. 
Their rule was unsuccessful, but William of Wykeham 
— Winchester's greatest bishop (1366-1404), and 
now almost regarded as her patron saint — put it on 
its feet again. Then Cardinal Beaufort took hold of 
St. Cross, and made upon it an impress which re- 
mains to this day. 

In the earlier centuries of English history it was far 
more difficult than now for a man suffering reverses to 
recuperate his condition, and institutions like St. 
Cross were genuine charities. In this age one cannot 
but fear that they foster improvidence, and are subject 
to abuse. Beaufort was a practical statesman, and 
instituted one most important reform in establishing 
the precedent, still followed, of selecting for bene- 
ficiaries " chiefly such as have seen better days, but 
who have fallen into the world's neglect by misfortune, 
or that indescribable decay against which no human 
foresight can guard, and not by crime or profligate 
extravagance." 

Brown-gown said that the selection in these days 
rested with a board of distinguished gentlemen. Upon 
the death of a resident brother, an election is had for 
a successor, a certain time being given applicants to 
send in their testimonials of good standing. I under- 
stood him to say that competition was restricted to 
the diocese of Winchester. Brown-gown had been 



Winchester and the Isle of Wight. 91 

for forty years clerk of his parish • he had " nivver bin 
oop afoor their honors, the magistrates," and " 'ad 
leev'd a decint life as ivver a mon leev'd," but he and 
his wife had not seemed to get on in the world after 
once losing some little property. So he applied for a 
life berth in St. Cross, backed by the testimonials of 
his rector, " an' a heap o' gen'lemen." Thrice he 
applied in succession ; the third time he won, over 
the heads of sixty-two competitors, and as the chubby 
old man hobbled before us, leaning on his staff, he 
gleefully chuckled at his success. Several times there- 
after, in the midst of describing some architectural 
antique, he would turn to us with a broad grin and 
punctuate his remarks by smartly tapping the floor 
with his stick, " Ay, ay, zur ! There been seexty- 
two ithers o' thim, m'am, and I woon ! " 

When Beaufort and the poor brothers broke bread 
together, as they often did, — if the traditions of the 
hospital are to be accepted, — there were right merry 
times in the fine old oak-panelled dining-hall. A 
mixture of gin and beer appears to have been their 
favorite tipple ; and in a glass case are still exhibited 
the great leathern jacks, which on these festal oc- 
casions held the drink that was sure at last to lay them 
all, bishop and alms-men, under the table together. 
Beaufort's tankard, his wooden candlesticks, his salt- 
cellars, his old chair, even the pewter plates off which 
he ate, are shown with pride, and many the quaint 
tale the brothers of to-day tell concerning them. 

Our brother dwelt with unction on " ther good oP 
toimes o' Card'n'l Beaufort;" and I fancied a note 
of regret as he said there were now each year but 
four " gaudy days " on which the brethren dined in 



92 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

state together off an eighty-pound roast, — Christmas, 
Easter, Whitsuntide, and Michaelmas. Their food to- 
day is ample for aged people not engaged in manual 
labor. Four times a week — Sunday, Monday, Tues- 
day, and Thursday — they have a meat dinner. This 
is cooked by the hospital servants in the great four- 
teenth-century kitchen, redolent with memories of 
Beaufort, and is spread on the dining-hall table. 
Taking his turn at the best cut, each brother is 
given his share of meat and vegetables on a large 
pewter platter, and this he takes to his rooms. All 
other meals are prepared at his own domicile, and are 
of a simple character. 

The brethren live in a long range of pretty stone 
cottages, off each entry being two suites of apart- 
ments, — a bedroom and sitting-room being assigned 
to each couple, for the brothers are allowed to bring 
their wives with them. The latter, however, must re- 
tire from the hospital on the deaths of their husbands, — 
a regulation which is bitterly commented on by the 
beneficiaries. In addition to the food and clothing, 
the inmates are given a small sum of pocket-money 
from the endowment income, which is thoroughly in 
keeping with the general policy of treating them like 
a parcel of children. A part of this money is in lieu 
of the old-time quantum of gin and ale, now discon- 
tinued. They are nevertheless allowed to purchase 
and bring home kegs of beer, the managers preferring 
this to seeing their wards smuggle in bottles and jugs. 

The curious old Norman church of the hospital, 
now somewhat over-restored, the galleried leper ward, 
and the various public buildings attached to the insti- 
tution, we were much interested in and long examined ; 



Winchester and the Isle of Wight. 93 

but regarding them I can say nothing in my journal that 
cannot be found in guide-books, and these we can 
easily read up again whenever the picture of St. Cross 
grows dim within us. The practical workings, how- 
ever, in our own day of this twelfth-century charity 
we have nowhere found described, and were glad to 
see so much of them at close range. 

Recrossing the intervening meadows of the Itchen, 
bursting with springs and difficult to keep within the 
several channels to which drainage engineers have 
elaborately sought to confine it, we entered the cricket- 
ground of Winchester School. Built by William of 
Wykeham in the last quarter of the fourteenth century 
as a school preparatory to New College at Oxford, the 
older buildings remain practically unaltered, although 
the institution has grown since W T ykeham's day, and 
holds high rank in England. There are now taught here 
about five hundred boys between the ages of eight and 
seventeen. Only a fraction of these have residence in 
the college. The favored ones are distinguished from 
those who dwell outside with the masters, by wearing 
gowns. As a rule, the pupils of Winchester are a fine- 
looking, manly lot of boys. 

Many of their customs strike an American as odd sur- 
vivals of the past. For instance, when passing through 
the " lady quadrangle," in which there is perched, over 
a fourteenth-century archway, a stone image of the 
Virgin, all but the Seniors doff their hats, but these 
scholastic autocrats stalk through the court resolutely 
covered. We saw the rude stone trough in which, up 
to forty years ago, the scholars were compelled to 
wash themselves in all seasons. The boys do not 
study in their dormitories. Here and there are cosey 



94 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

study rooms, each arranged for ten lads at their books 
with a petty officer in charge. The great school bears 
many evidences of its once having been a monastic 
adjunct, — notably the secluded cloisters, in the centre 
of which there yet remains, in perfect condition, the 
old chapter-house, said here to be the only one of the 
kind preserved entire in England. Some of Crom- 
well's officers had been scholars at Winchester School, 
which accounts for its having withstood the ravages of 
revolution better than any other institution in England. 
The cathedral, the dominant feature in the land- 
scape, we found quite as impressive by day as in the 
twilight. But amid the splendor of nave and choir 
and chantries and hoary effigies of priestly and 
secular notables, and amid all the historic memories 
which crowd upon one within this ancient pile, we 
sought most eagerly for the tomb of Walton. In one 
of the chapels of the south transept, marked by an 
obscure slab of black marble, we found the resting- 
place of the Contemplative Man, — 



' Whose well-spent life did last 
Full ninety years and past." 



We have ever held in common a peculiar venera- 
tion for this gentle and communicative fresh-air phi- 
losopher of the seventeenth century j and it seemed 
fitting that we should, on this our gypsying tour through 
out-of-door England, be pilgrims at his shrine. 

We were under engagement to spend a few days 
with friends in the Isle of Wight, and it had been our 
intention to take our machines with us. Reports of 
topographical difficulties, however, induced us to leave 
them behind with the ostler of the Winchester inn, 



Winchester and the Isle of WigliU 95 

while we took our side trip by more prosaic modes of 
locomotion. 

At four o'clock in the afternoon we were off by rail 
to Stokes Bay, on the sandy, fort-strewn shore of Spit- 
head. A small paddle-wheel steamer, bearing a mis- 
cellaneous cargo of humanity, bales, and boxes, carried 
us across the intervening three and a half miles of 
water, and in a quarter of an hour from Stokes Bay we 
were boarding the railway carriages on the pier at 
Ryde. Distances are short in the Isle of Wight, and 
at 5.46 we were being cordially greeted by our 
hostess at Sandown (three thousand inhabitants) on 
the southeast coast. 

After tea, and to get an appetite for supper, we 
had a bracing walk along the Sandown esplanade and 
beach, and over a country road to Yaverland village. 
The fresh salt breeze and the dull boom of break- 
ing surf were in strong contrast to the calm of the 
rural highway, where old farmhouses, beautiful stone 
mansions, and vine-draped churches seemed in the 
fading light but structures in dreamland. 

Sunday, jf/i. A walk along the grassy cliffs to-day 
to Shanklin (three thousand inhabitants), two and a 
half miles to the southwest, was full of interest. It is 
possible at low tide to make the journey by the nar- 
row beach ; but at the hour we started the tide was 
in, and breakers, leaping against the rocky wall far 
above the path of sand, fell back into the depths 
with sullen roar. From our vantage-point, three hun- 
dred feet above sea-level, we had fine views of the 
convoluted coast, from the sheer front of Culver Cliff 
on the northeast to the gloomy promontory of Dun- 
nose on the south. 



g6 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

Sandown and Shanklin have from small fishing vil- 
lages grown with most remarkable rapidity into fash- 
ionable watering-places. They have extensive and 
handsome piers and esplanades, with fine hotels and 
" boarding establishments " on every hand. Sandown is 
the quieter of the two, and is chiefly occupied by re- 
tired well-to-do residents of the middle class, who have, 
attracted by its soft and equable climate, made the 
island their home. Shanklin has the usual glitter and 
parade of a popular bathing resort. It being early in 
the season, we are rather strenuously informed by 
hundreds of rival pasteboard window-signs of the fact 
that there is yet an abundance of room for the accom- 
modation of visitors. 

Shanklin Chine, a beautiful little ravine, with water- 
falls, dense vegetation, precipitous slopes, and several 
charming grottos, — in which Nature has been much 
aided by art, — is, apart from the fine beach, the lion 
of the place. 

Our homeward path was inland, a mile or so back 
from the cliffs, and through the rustic hamlet of Lake. 
There are many fine villas on the way, and everywhere 
a high state of agricultural development. The cost of 
food is somewhat higher on " the island " than in Great 
Britain. The islanders do not, in the height of the 
tourist season, raise sufficient provisions for domestic 
consumption, and eligible garden-patches reap a goodly 
income for the owner. The Isle of Wight is Britain 
in miniature, — there is the same rich diversity of 
scenery, hill and valley, fen and moorland, forest and 
meadow, park and farmland, with about the same pro- 
portion of arable soil. 

After dinner we roamed with our friends to the 



Wiiichester and the Isle of Wight. 97 

top of BembridgeHill, where there are a fort and 
numerous outlying batteries. The shores of the little 
island are well strewn with such defences, and it is 
difficult to get out of sight of them. We hear too 
that under the harbors are labyrinths of torpedo 
mines. England does not propose, if she can help 
it, to allow an enemy to gain a foothold here, at her 
very doorstep. 

Monday \ 8t/i. A little party of us took train this 
morning for Ventnor (six thousand inhabitants), 
fourteen miles southwest, — another popular resort, 
where the climate is said to be " almost Italian in 
its mildness, frost and snow being of rare occur- 
rence, while in summer the heat is tempered by sea- 
breezes." We certainly found the air delightfully 
refreshing, although the evening papers reported a 
hot day over in Britain. Ventnor appears to be one 
great consumptive hospital. I must acknowledge 
that the fact of being in the shadow of so much 
human distress was at times rather depressing. 

There are noble walks here at every turn. At first, 
following the higher of several parallel roads at differ- 
ent levels leading southwestward along the shore, we 
had remarkable panoramic views of high chalk-cliffs, 
gently undulating sea, pretty villas and gardens, and es- 
tates in which landscape-gardeners have had full sway. 
After two miles of this lofty pedestrianism — back 
of us the crest of the down, six hundred feet above 
the sea, and below us the land descending in natural 
terraces to the ocean-washed cliffs — we made a short 
cut to the lowest road, across sloping fields, clamber- 
ing down long series of slippery stone steps, through 
a tangled wood hung with vines, and finally crawling 
7 



98 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

over a high stone wall to gain the desired highway 
to the UnderclirT. 

It is one of the most beautiful avenues we ever saw. 
Great trees, chiefly beeches, lock their branches over- 
head j the outlying hedge-banks are rich with flowers 
and grasses which best thrive in humid shade ; stone 
walls, cottages, and villas are richly carpeted with 
ivy, myrtle, and tender parasites ; in rocky dells, 
through which the road is often cut, ferns luxuri- 
ate in great variety, especially prominent being the 
favorite hart's-tongue. Here and there, peering 
above garden walls, are fuchsias grown into sturdy 
trees fifteen feet in height, and brilliant with scarlet 
and purple buds. As the road winds by the Under- 
cliff, we see land-slips on the right, sharply descend- 
ing to our path in broad windrows from the beetling 
downs above ; seaward, through the columns of our 
overhanging arch, we have soft and delicious marine 
views, suggesting the Mediterranean. 

After lunch in Ventnor village — where Bath chairs 
were being dragged up steep grades by woolly don- 
keys blinking sleepily behind great blinders — we 
had a most excruciating climb up to the railway 
station, which is set in a gorge at the mouth of a 
tunnel. Warehouses for coals and beer and other 
bulky necessaries of life have been cut like caves 
out of the solid gray rock roundabout. 

After dinner at Sandown, W and I set out 

alone for a walk to Brading, some two or three miles 
inland, beyond Yaverland. Near Brading, far back 
from the road in the centre of wheat-fields, are the 
remains of a Roman villa, discovered in 1880, and 
thought to have been the seat of the Roman gov- 



Winchester and the Isle of Wight. 99 

ernor of this district. Some very good tessellated 
pavements are enclosed by a wooden shed which also 
contains an interesting museum of more portable 
" finds " in the neighborhood. The Romans appear 
to have been rather reckless with their money. You 
can approximately estimate the age of almost any 
Roman remain in England by the coins picked up 
about it; here at Brading, the date of the pieces 
found run from a. d. 222 to 350. 

Brading village, hard by, is a quaint old place 
much visited by tourists ; and Bradingites have a 
more than ordinary longing for "tips." Projecting 
above the pavement, in the centre of a triangular 
market-place, is shown the ancient bull-ring, an- 
chored by a ponderous lump of iron with a cavity 
in which Taurus buried his nose when, in the heat of 
torture, he was eager for a fresh breath undisturbed. 
Not far off, in the corner of the churchyard, is a 
little red-brick town-hall, elevated on stone pillars, 
with stairs leading up through the floor. Under- 
neath the stairway is a cheerless closet, in whose 
door is a small hole for light and air ; this was the 
old-time lock-up, and in front of this are the primi- 
tive village stocks. An iron railing between the 
outer pillars now encloses these barbarous relics as 
in a cage ; and tourists come from afar to gaze on 
them. Yet they come down to us from a not dis- 
tant past. An old villager told us that his father had 
seen bulls baited in the market-place yonder ; he had, 
in his own young manhood, been condemned to sit 
in these very same stocks, but the sentence was com- 
muted, and they had ever since been preserved as 
curiosities. 



ioo Our Cycling Tour in England. 

When Queen Victoria ascended the throne, only 
fifty- four years ago, she took the crown of pretty 
much the same sort of England that the first George 
knew, for progress was almost imperceptible in those 
good old days. The England which King Edward 
VII. will inherit from her is quite another land. 

Winchester, Tuesday, gtk. Bidding farewell at 
Sandown this morning to the kind friends who had 
with hearty good-will done much to render profitable 
our necessarily brief stay in the island, we took the 
8.27 train to Freshwater via Newport. It is a trip 
of but twenty-two miles, the length of the island from 
east to west, — Wight measures but thirteen miles 
from north to south, — yet there is considerable 
variety of scenery. Valleys and hills, meadows and 
salt-marshes, downs bald and wooded, busy little 
towns and picturesque villages rapidly succeed each 
other along the line ; and* the island trains go at a 
pace which enables one deliberately to study the 
panorama as it unrolls. 

At Freshwater, a country station with a few board- 
ing-houses, we selected one of the half-dozen brakes 
awaiting the arrival of the train, and were driven 
westward three miles, at first through shady lanes and 
avenues, and finally over bare and rocky ridges, to 
Alum Bay. The route ends in front of a summer hotel, 
which looks lonesome enough out there on the wind- 
swept cliffs, the cold gray ocean for a background. 
The gorgeous head waiter, who came down the grav- 
elled path to meet us, towel over arm, and long side- 
whiskers streaming in the breeze, was visibly agitated 
as we promptly took our lunch-basket from the brake, 
— the bags had been left at Newport to await our 



Winchester and the Isle of Wight. 101 

return, — and without ceremony or guide or hotel 
sandwiches wandered off across the hills, as inde- 
pendent excursionists should. 

The country consists of great tumbled masses of 
chalk and sandstone intermingled, the carpet of 
stunted grass dotted here and there with dark 
patches of gorse, now just bursting amid the thorns 
into rich yellow bloom ; seaward, the naked cliffs, 
lashed by wind and spray, rise sheer above a narrow 
beach of whitened bowlders, — now chalky white, 
now vertically streaked with sandstone stripes of red, 
yellow, green, and gray. Off the farthest western 
point, three jagged, dazzling pillars of chalk, resting 
on dark-colored bases, rear their crests a hundred 
feet above the seething flood, — the Needles, famous 
and ominous among mariners. In a calm it is a 
wild, impressive scene ; on a stormy night in winter 
it must be a place of fury. 

Lighthouses alternate with forts on the headlands 
up and down the dentated coast. Wandering north- 
ward along the curving cliff which bulwarks Alum 
Bay on the east, we made bold to enter Hatherwood 
Battery, where three great machine-guns of the latest 
pattern were being worked in dumb show by well- 
trained crews of artillery volunteers. These monster 
engines of destruction cost a deal in powder and 
ball each time they belch; and the volunteers are 
permitted actually to touch them off but once or 
twice each training-day. We had about satisfied our 
curiosity when a natty sergeant, his little round cap 
perched deftly over the left ear, politely requested a 
look at our pass. Having no such document, I ob- 
tained, by questioning him, what further information 



102 Our Cycling Tour in England, 

I desired, and then we withdrew, the heavy gate, 
hitherto open, being carefully closed behind us. It 
then occurred to me that my Kodak, which I had 
commenced to unmask when the sergeant inter- 
rupted us, had excited official suspicion. On the 
continent, an artist or an amateur photographer who 
ventures within gunshot of a fortification is in peril 
of being made a state prisoner. 

Towering just above our heads was the great black 
wall of Farringford Hill, on the storm-scathed ter- 
races of which were seen battery after battery, pro- 
tecting Hatherwood below. Telephone wires are 
stretched in many directions, connecting these van- 
tage-points, and on several peaks in the neighbor- 
hood we noticed signal stations, — modern beacons. 
It is a favorite practice-ground for her Majesty's 
artillerymen. 

As we rounded the edge of the peak, along a wind- 
ing sheep-path which leads from Hatherwood Battery 
over to Totland Bay, there came floating far across 
the rugged ravine separating us from the Needles 
Hotel the rhythmic crash of a military band. We 
now for the first time saw on a distant plateau a 
little square of peaked tents, in its centre floating 
at staff-head the standard of the empire. It was the 
eleven o'clock guard-mount; and soon there stole 
forth, headed by drums dancing with the rat-tat of 
" Bonnie Blue Bells," two detachments of blue- 
coated volunteers, — one ascending to the Needles' 
battery, and the other marching our way, to relieve 
the suspicious sergeant in his gloomy pantomime. 

We lunched on our lofty path, now that Farring- 
ford stood between us and windy Alum Bay ; above 



Winchester and the Isle of Wight. 103 

and back of us, the lowering peak, dark and star- 
ing where bereft of soil by sweeping blasts, but Else- 
where blazing with yellow, for in sheltered spots the 
gorse is in full blossom. The compact heather still 
is gray and black, but in a few weeks' time it will 
cloak with royal purple these forbidding flanks. Be- 
low us, the mountain-sides grow greener as they ap- 
proach fair meadows at our feet ; off to the right, 
smooth, beacon-crowned downs, sloping upward from 
the meadows, line the southern shore ; to the left, 
just around the corner, beautiful Totland Bay glances 
in the sunlight, and a fresh array of forts and bat- 
teries have come into view on every side, — the sea- 
coast fairly bristles with them. 

Soon, as we proceed, Totland Bay is full in sight, 
and we gradually descend from Farringford Hill to 
the broad footpath along the summit of grass-grown 
cliffs. In the central foreground, nestled in a valley 
where foliage is as luxurious as at the Needles it is 
sparse, are the pretty red shades of the brand-new 
village of Totland Bay. It is a charming bit of a 
watering-place, with a hotel as the chief feature. On 
a slope beyond, just without a formidable battery into 
which it seems as if we might cast a stone from our 
elevation, is another camp of volunteer gunners, — a 
band playing sweetly at the hour of noon, and the 
blue and red banner gayly flying above a field of 
white. 

We paused long before leaving our perch on the 
hillside, for the panorama of land and sea was most 
entrancing. The mouth of the Solent was close at 
hand, just beyond Totland Bay, and ships of varying 
size were passing to and fro in processions through 



104 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

the narrow way. On our side, the rolling land, car- 
peted with vivid green, for the most part broke off 
abruptly at the water's edge, presenting to English 
view an array of gleaming chalk-cliffs. Opposite, the 
dark low line of the New Forest — through which 
we shall be cycling a few days hence — stretches far 
away to the left ; on the right, looming up on the 
horizon, the wooded downs this side Southampton 
Water ; in front, reaching far out towards us, a nar- 
row spit of yellow sand, at the extremity of which 
we distinguish gray masses of masonry, — lighthouses, 
breakwaters, and Hurst Castle, from which strong- 
hold Charles I. went to his death at Whitehall in the 
long ago. 

From Totland Bay we walked across to Fresh- 
water two miles away, over a down, and then along 
a rustic road, well overhung with elms and beeches, 
whose shade was grateful, for the day was warm in- 
land. At School Green, a little village but a few 
minutes' walk from Freshwater station, we paused on 
a springy bank under a grove of fine trees, again to 
lunch ; we have at last gotten quite into the English 
habit of wishing two or three lunches a day. Around 
us, as we sat, marsh-marigolds were growing in pro- 
fusion, with buttercups and red orchids. A noisy 
rivulet divided our bank from the village street, on 
which were a long line of houses of various patterns 
of antiquity. Barefooted children, lagging on their 
way to school, stopped to wade in the brook and 
cast curious eyes at us ; women came across the 
road occasionally to fill their buckets from a stone 
basin through which water had been forced to run ; 
and a carter with a beer van paused long enough to 



Winchester a fid the Isle of Wight. 105 

draw a bucket brimming full, in which he first soused 
his great red face, and then watered his horse from 
what was left. 

Taking the 2.18 train eastward we soon were at 
Carisbrooke station, — you have not far to go from 
point to point in the Isle of Wight. In chance com- 
pany with a stout elderly clergyman, who had a 
benevolent countenance, a suspiciously red nose, and 
gold-bowed spectacles, and carried a plethoric black 
leather Gladstone bag, we set out on foot for the an- 
cient castle, which is perched on a considerable emi- 
nence over the fields a mile to the east. Our way 
lay through Carisbrooke village, where there is an old 
ivy-clad church with a well-preserved Norman tower 
and a pulpit of Cromwell's time. Our clerical com- 
panion seated himself on a rude stone bench in the 
south porch and mopped his perspiring brow, while 
we inspected the interior ; the old man, who was 
rather free in his confidences, said that, being in 
charge of an ancient church of his own, he had quite 
enough of that sort of thing as a daily diet, and was 
just now off on a holiday. 

In the hamlet nearly every house along the foot- 
path leading to the castle was decorated with card- 
board signs advertising mild refreshments, and photo- 
graphs " cheaper than at the castle." In the little 
box-bordered gardens, under grape arbors and can- 
vas awnings, tables were set for tea. From behind 
hawthorn hedges women and girls watched our ap- 
proach with eager eyes, and then tearfully gazed after 
us as we passed on indifferent to their wares. 

In ascending the steep hill, terrace after terrace, 
the wheezy strains of accordions came floating down 



io6 Onr Cycling Tour in England. 

to us from the castle walls, and for a moment I 
fancied the ancient fortress of the Lord of Wight had 
in these degenerate days been transformed into a 
beer- garden. But on emerging from the wooded 
path leading up to the splendid thirteenth-century 
gate, we saw that the entertainment was furnished by 
half a dozen blind men and a parcel of wretched 
women, vociferously seeking alms from passers-by. 

Farther on, just outside the wicket, other blind 
men and still other wretched women pester you with 
photographs at reduced rates, and pitiful stories of 
the necessity of immediately unloading their stock to 
save themselves from starvation. Our parson, on 
coming upon this clamorous scene, set his back to 
the crowd, and pulling out his purse extracted there- 
from a certain number of copper pennies. One of 
these he impartially dropped, with a saint-like 
expression, into each outstretched cup or dirty 
hand. Later I heard him sharply haggling over 
prices with the guard at the wicket, who, it seems, is 
the " only authorized dealer " in Carisbrooke photo- 
graphs, and is undersold by all the rest. Perhaps 
this underselling is an adroit scheme among the 
venders to encourage business. 

The picturesque ruins of Carisbrooke Castle are 
the chief historical attraction on the island. This 
commanding hill-top has been a stronghold since 
Saxon times, but nothing here is older now than 
the Norman keep ; the principal part of the pres- 
ent walls is of the thirteenth century, while Queen 
Elizabeth built the extensive outworks. Here Charles 
I. was a captive before he went to Hurst Castle, and 
from there to his execution. Two of his children — 



Winchester and the Isle of Wight. 107 

Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and the Princess Eliza- 
beth — were also prisoners at Carisbrooke after the 
downfall of their house. In a dungeon-like chamber, 
which every tourist visits, the unfortunate Elizabeth 
died ; and not far off was the room wherein dwelt 
Charles himself. They are mean-looking places now, 
stripped of all sculptured ornaments, and scribbled 
and scratched over by sight-seeing fools from all over 
Christendom. 

The view from the walls, which are now crumbled 
into graceful lines, and heavily draped with ivy, is 
widespread and beautiful. It is easy to see how, in 
the days before great siege-guns, it was possible for 
the one who held this fortress to keep the entire west 
of Wight in complete subjection. The country 
roundabout, valley after valley, hamlet after hamlet, 
lay at his feet; the master here was indeed lord 
paramount. 

Apparently the central point of interest to the 
majority of the holiday crowd to-day was the castle 
well, two hundred feet deep, situated in the midst of 
the great inner court. A board shed is built over the 
well-mouth, and in here is a circular frame standing 
on edge, in which a trained donkey walks, and 
thereby reels up the bucket-rope. The door is 
opened every few minutes to admit a fresh crowd to 
witness this edifying spectacle. The place is badly 
ventilated and foul-smelling; the keeper, who man- 
ages the performance, and gives each visitor who 
wishes it a cup of water from the bucket as it comes 
up, is a surly fellow, and lets no one escape without 
depositing "a trifle for the donkey," — a figure of 
speech, the trifle being for himself. 



io8 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

The Carisbrooke donkey is famous, and ten photo- 
graphs of the little fellow in his whirling cage are sold, 
to one of the castle itself. Afterwards, as we were 
wandering around the outer walls, we noticed grazing 
in the tennis-court another donkey, the exact counter- 
part of the one in the well-house. We were pri- 
vately informed that it was in reality a twin-donkey 
show, each relieving the other on " big days ; " the 
" great original " Carisbrooke donkey, who is pic- 
tured in the photographs, died long ago, but his 
mantle fell on two or three successive generations of 
his kind, and the rustic public are none the wiser. 

It was a pleasant walk of a mile downhill to New- 
port station. Our clerical companion — whom, I 
must confess, we had rather avoided, we could not 
exactly say why — caught up with us again, quite 
fatigued with dragging his Gladstone up and down 
the walls and terraces. On entering the town, he ex- 
pressed surprise that I declined to stop at an inn and 
take a glass of claret with him, but gracefully bade 
us farewell at the door. A quarter of an hour later, 
as we were waiting in our compartment for the train 
to start for Cowes, the red-nosed parson reappeared, 
odorous with something stronger than claret, and 
leaning through the open window, volubly lectured us 
on the decadence of ecclesiastical art. When the 
guard's whistle roused him, he affectionately, almost 
sobbingly, wished us Godspeed, with regrets, in 
which we could not join, that our course lay north, 
while his was east. As the train drew from out the 
station we ventured to peep from the window ; our 
fellow-pedestrian saw the movement and waved his 
handkerchief with much vigor. " I pity his parish ! " 



Winchester and the Isle of Wight. 109 

said W , quietly, as extracting her Baedeker from 

the lunch-basket, she began to look up on Cowes. 

At Cowes we took a small steamer for Southamp- 
ton, the trip across occupying an hour. There was 
much life of a quiet sort on the river Medina, from 
Cowes to the coast, — ferries, excursion steamers, 
yachts, and row-boats ; and on the sloping banks are 
numerous fine villas. In passing East Cowes, at the 
mouth, we catch distant glimpses over the tree-tops 
of the towers of Osborne House, a favorite summer 
residence of the Queen. 

But the estuary of Southampton Water interests us 
more. The tide is low, exposing great black salt 
marshes on either side ; beyond these the country 
rises gently, the more abrupt ridges on the east being 
crowned by villas, and, in beautiful parks, public in- 
stitutions of various kinds. It is a quiet, peaceful 
scene, as the sun is sinking low behind the sombre 
belt of the New Forest; water and land, hill and 
wood, are aglow with changing colors ; in the depths 
of the glassy flood are reflected fleecy clouds of gold 
and purple, rudely torn by our black prow. As we 
steal onward to the dark and busy town lying where 
the Itchen and the Test pour their sweet waters into 
the tidal pool, we wonder if the Pilgrims of the 
"Mayflower" and the "Speedwell" dropped down 
to Plymouth on such a night as this. If so, their 
stress must have indeed been great for them willingly 
to turn their backs on the heavenly places of their 
native land and front the horrors of a savage-haunted 
wilderness across unknown seas. 




CHAPTER VI. 



VILLAGE LIFE. 



OALISBURY, Wednesday, June 10. Arriving at 
^ Winchester by train last evening at a quarter to 
eight, we left there on our machines this morning at 
9.45, taking the lower coach road to Salisbury by the 
way of Romsey, — a run of twenty-seven miles. 

Four or five miles southwest of Winchester is the 
hamlet of Pitt, where the elder Pitt was born. It 
consists of four or five thatched cottages, with a small 
modern brick church, and makes an interesting pic- 
ture, nestled in a hollow by the highway, with a 
market-garden in the foreground. 

Standen and Hursley, not far on, are straggling and 
rather picturesque villages of the regulation type ; 
and then we come to the beautiful Amphiel Wood, 
where for a mile and a half we spin over a lonely 
forest road, as perfectly metalled as a race-track. 

Beyond Amphiel Wood we paused in a shady val- 
ley, where a noisy brook was crossed by a moss- 
covered arch, and elms and willows mingled their 
branches over the way. A clump of cottages stood 
back from the road, with diminutive flower-gardens 



Village Life. II i 

in front, and across the street was an ancient church, 
capable perhaps of accommodating a congregation of 
fifty. This is Crampton Moor, a harsh name for a 
lovely dell. 

From out the church door came the familiar hum 
of children's voices reciting in unison, and entering, 
we were met in the south porch by the school-mis- 
tress, — a simple, red-cheeked, pleasant-spoken young 
woman, who welcomed us with native grace. It was 
a National school, she explained, with forty-six 
children on the roll and forty-one present, ranging 
between the ages of three and ten. The children, 
much excited at this unexpected appearance of 
strangers, were seated on the chairs and rough 
benches in use by their elders on Sundays. A cheap 
curtain hid the chancel from view. In the rear of 
the room was a low platform, euphemistically styled 
" the gallery," on which sat the primary scholars in 
charge of the assistant, a raw girl of some sixteen 
summers. The little ones were put through their 
paces for our benefit. The standard of excellence is 
about the same as in American country schools in 
the most isolated districts. 

In England there are two systems of state- 
supported schools, the Board and the National. In 
many villages we have been in, both varieties are con- 
ducted. The National is in charge of the Church 
Establishment, and often the parson's curate is the 
head master. The Board school is so called because 
under the direction of the London School Board, and 
it is strictly unsectarian. The bulk of the people 
would doubtless prefer the Board school, but the 
National is stubbornly upheld by the squire, the 



1 1 2 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

farmer, and the parson. It will probably have to go 
in time, however, as the tide seems setting that way. 
The Free Education Act will be in force by autumn, 
and the laborer's child can no longer be expelled for 
non-payment of the old fee of four or six cents per 
week. Perhaps it means two glasses more of beer 
for the laborer himself. 

The English State schools are only for the masses ; 
no man of the classes, whatever his financial con- 
dition, would think of sending his child to a common 
school. The scene so familiar in every American 
school, of rich and poor children, high and low, — and 
in the North, black and white, — freely commingling 
in democratic simplicity, can nowhere be duplicated 
in England. The mere thought of it would seem 
scandalous here, even to the masses themselves. The 
farmer and the squire, upholding the National school 
because parochial, look with jealousy on the Board 
school on account of its secular and business-like 
character, and honestly believe that it is over-edu- 
cating the children of the laboring class, causing 
them to be discontented with their lot and to migrate 
from the villages to the cities, in the hope of finding a 
broader field for intelligent effort. One need not 
go far to meet with this sort of sentiment regard- 
ing our own schools, among a certain class of Amer- 
ican citizens. 

We were quite delighted with Romsey, — a pretty 
little town on the river Test {alias Anton), with a 
grand old church, the sole survival of a Norman 
abbey, founded by Edward the Elder for Benedictine 
nuns of royal birth, and sacked by the ruthless Danes. 
It must be confessed that we fairly stumbled on this 



Village Life. 113 

choice bit of antiquity, never having heard of its ex- 
istence until we were within the shadow of its massive 
tower. The edifice has fallea victim to the prevail- 
ing fever for restoration, but there is still an abun- 
dance of untouched twelfth-century work about it. 
A fine nun's door, of beautiful Norman work, with an 
almost life-size crucifix carved in relief on the neigh- 
boring outer wall, is the central charm of the sanctu- 
ary. The cloisters, while thrown into ruins by the 
priest-hating Cromwellians, — who made complete 
havoc of the lady chapel, — still retain many features 
of interest. 

On leaving Romsey, we paused on the bridge over 
the Test, here a swift-running stream. To the left, 
down current, closing a pleasant vista of glancing 
river, overarching trees, and choice meadows, is Broad- 
lands House, the old home of Lord Palmerston, at 
present possessed by a cousin of the last lord, for the 
family name is extinct. Up and down the river, the 
great estate extends as far as the eye can reach, — 
hills, woodlands, green fields, and hamlets; a soft, 
lovely landscape, wherein one might in sweet content 
dream life away. Climbing the hill beyond, we had 
charming retrospective views of the valley, with Broad- 
lands mansion and the stately, massive church of 
Romsey against backgrounds of brilliant verdure. 

Two miles to the northwest, we applied at the com- 
fortable cottage of a lodge-keeper for a jug of milk to 
accompany the lunch we proposed having under the 
shadow of the wall of a large estate. The woman in 
charge had no milk to spare, but invited us into her 
little garden, where we sat behind a laurel hedge 
while tea was being made. It was served right pret- 
8 



1 14 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

tily, on a circular table, by the merry, dimple-cheeked 
daughter of our hostess. She told us that we were 
lunching within Embley Park, once the estate of 
Florence Nightingale, but now owned by her cousin, 
a gentleman bearing the familiar name of Smith. An- 
nually many sight-seers come to visit the home of the 
Crimean heroine ; and as the young maiden stood at 
hand, anxious to serve us, — for the customary tip, 
— she gossiped freely regarding the changing for- 
tunes of Embley, and her mother's lodge-gate 
recollections of the illustrious dead. 

We passed through several villages this afternoon. 
The rural communities of southern England have 
many features in common. I have one in mind — 
not on to-day's route — which may, though no two 
are quite alike, fairly be regarded as typical. The 
squire's "big house" is the chief feature, its lawns 
and woodlands, improved by centuries of landscape- 
gardening, all carefully bounded and hidden by high 
stone walls, which are resplendent in ivy, moss, and 
lichens ; one view alone is vouchsafed the groundlings, 
and that through the open bars of massive wrought- 
iron gates, — a rose-embowered lodge in the fore- 
ground, a broad and winding gravelled driveway, and 
a tempting vista over stretches of greensward beneath 
sturdy oaks and sweeping elms, the bewindowed 
mansion filling up the background, rectangular, gray^ 
austere, as the old squire himself. 

The village has grown up as a consequence of the 
presence of the big house. Its nucleus a few cen- 
turies back was the original squire's out-servants, his 
farm laborers and those of his agricultural tenants. 
Its one long, irregular street is still conveniently 



Village Life. 115 

nestled at the foot of the squire's homestead grounds, 
with his park walls for a background, and his entrance- 
gate vying as a work of art with the old market cross 
and the spick-span Victoria jubilee fountain. 

There are a few plain, two-story brick and stone 
buildings around the broad market-place, in which 
live the squire's steward, the surgeon, and the doctor, 
with mayhap a shopkeeper or two, and a military pen- 
sioner ; but as a rule the villagers are domiciled in 
cottages. These are low, story-and-a-half cabins, 
each closely crowding its neighbor ; the walls of stone 
or brick often are scrupulously whitened with lime- 
wash, and the dormered roof is either of red- brick 
tile or of straw thatch. Sometimes the cottage abuts 
directly upon the street, often without allowance for a 
footpath ; more often perhaps, there is in front a rod 
or less of flower-garden, separated from the street by a 
low stone wall and a wicket, while flowering vines are 
trained over the door and windows. Here and there 
is a long solid block of dreary-looking cottages for 
the farm laborers, each householder being allowed a 
front door and a window or two, with a gay flower- 
patch carefully screened from his next-door neighbor ; 
for the Englishman, high or low, is marvellously ex- 
clusive, and nothing about America amazes him more 
than to hear that in many of our towns a partition 
fence is something of a rarity. 

One of the interesting features of English rural life 
is the number of small retail shops. In this rustic 
village of a thousand inhabitants, probably one fifth of 
the cottages display something for sale. The man of 
the house is perhaps a mechanic or a farm laborer, 
and his wife and children strive to eke out the meagre 



Ii6 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

family income by selling candies, cakes, bread, vege- 
tables, and knick-knacks. Now and then the shop 
blossoms out into a small grocery, but in the majority 
of cases five dollars would be a large estimate of the 
value of the stock in trade ; while frequently one sees 
a feeble attempt to attract children's pennies by a dis- 
play of sweets in a roadside cottage window, that 
surely could be bought out at retail for fifty cents. 
From the fact that practically the shop-keepers, big 
and little, in all but the largest English towns, live 
back of or over their shops, and often indeed in 
them, and that the women and children of the house- 
hold are the clerks, if not the sole managers, arises 
this enormous competition in retail trade. Expenses 
are light, indeed scarcely more than they would be if 
the family were not in trade, and it costs but little to 
make a modest mercantile venture. 

An American at once notices the village sign-boards, 
which bear a phraseology strange to him. " Smith's 
work in general," is the legend adopted by the black- 
smith, who occasionally calls himself a " forge- 
master." The carpenter informs you that he is a 
" practical undertaker and general joiner." The dairy- 
man is a " cow-keeper," and sometimes he makes 
bold to invite you in, in letters a foot high, to " see 
customers' jugs filled direct from the cow." The 
word "store" in England is principally used where 
in America we would employ the term " depot," — in 
a mercantile sense, and not as a synonym for railway 
station. There is the inevitable " co-operative store," 
or " the stores," as this establishment is frequently 
called ; then there are the " potato store," the " cheese- 
and- butter store," the " game store," etc. Everything 



Village Life. 1 17 

else is a " shop," except the barber shop, which is 
glorified into a " hair-dressing saloon," and the to- 
bacco shop, which is a "smokers' bazaar." At the 
candy shops you may ask for candies in vain, for 
everything of the sort is " sweets," and lemon-drops 
are disguised as " acidulated pastilles." What in 
America we should style a boarding stable, is here the 
only sort of " livery stable " known ; where there are 
also horses for hire, it becomes a " posting establish- 
ment," or " post-house ; " and the keeper, an impor- 
tant village character, is a "post-master," just as his 
ancestor was in the long ago, before the modern post- 
master, as a dispenser of mail matter, was heard of. 

Our village has its full quota of mechanics. Those 
whose work permits them to do so usually keep to 
their shops, which are either in or contiguous to their 
homes. One may see the village joiner, who is at the 
same time the parish undertaker, working at his bench 
any day of the week, from eight and often six in the 
morning till five in the afternoon, his buxom wife 
hard by with her washing or ironing, and their chil- 
dren merrily making dolls' houses of the coffins. In 
a country where buildings are of bricks and stone, and 
even the pig-sty and the garden wall must endure for 
centuries, naturally the mason is the artisan most in 
demand, and our village has several of this trade. 
Their work at the farms and on the great estates of 
the shire often leads them away from home, and they 
have a tramping reputation akin to that of the Ameri- 
can printer. Groups of craftsmen — masons, car- 
penters, and plumbers — may be met any day on the 
highways or on the trains, bound to or from their 
work, carrying their tools in rude flat baskets slung 



n8 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

over their shoulders. A cheap style of bicycle is 
rapidly coming into use both among these and the 
farm laborers, as a means of rapid transit. It would 
be a decided gain if the wheel, in getting them over 
the ground quickly, might have the effect to lessen 
their demands on the wayside tap-rooms. 

The English journeyman has an unattractive life. 
Starting out to his work, perhaps miles away, at six 
o'clock in the summer morning, with a heavy basket of 
tools and food over his shoulder, he often works until 
eight absolutely breakfastless ; then half an hour is al- 
lowed him for his cheerless meal of cold tea and bread 
and fat bacon ; at noon he has an hour or less for what 
dinner he has brought with him, and at five o'clock 
closes his day's task, sometimes taking a light lunch 
in the middle of the afternoon. As with the farm la- 
borer, rheumatism early seeks him for a victim ; and at 
sixty he is quite apt to be a useless old man, with " a 
crick in his back," a burden to himself and his rela- 
tives, perhaps ending his days in either the " union " 
— as the workhouse is now called — or a privately 
endowed almshouse. At his best, in the height of a 
busy season, he earns not exceeding $1.25 per day. 
He may have long stretches either of sickness or no 
work ; he has invariably a large family on his hands, and 
possibly a drink habit which makes every spare penny 
burn in his pocket ; the cost of provisions is not on the 
whole below that prevalent in America for the same 
quality of supplies, and thus he neither accumulates 
savings nor apparently wishes to. Let him endeavor to 
rise above his fellows, or furnish more comfortably his 
little cottage, — which the landlord's agent keeps so 
neatly without, but whose interior is apt to be cheerless 



Village Life. 1 19 

enough, — he would in many communities be scoffed at 
and shunned at the alehouse, as a man too proud for that 
state of life unto which it hath pleased God to call him. 
Then, again, the " union " will receive him when at last 
his working days are over ; and he looks forward with 
complacency — or shall we say with sullen indiffer- 
ence ? — to ending his days as a pauper. The picture 
is gloomy enough ; but despite all the philanthropists 
and the Friendly Co-operative societies can do, there 
are plenty of such cases in Merry England if you care 
to look for them. To be sure, individuals and neigh- 
borhoods diifer. I know communities where there are 
artisans living in their own neat cottages, either on 
leased land or freehold, and in a few cases owning and 
letting tenements to others ; but this is exceptional. 
The average condition is as I have stated. 

At the sub-stratum of village life is the farm laborer. 
Beginning work in the barns or in the fields at six in the 
morning, with three intervals in the day for refresh- 
ment, he is generally released at five in the afternoon, 
although often working much later. Nominally his 
wages are in the slack season from two dollars and a 
half to three dollars per week, and in the busy season 
four dollars, if he be a capable man ; but in addition he 
receives perquisites, which vary according to the cus- 
tom of the locality or the generosity of his master. 
These sometimes include free cottage rent, — equiva- 
lent to two dollars or two dollars and a half per 
month, — occasional fagots from the copse, a few 
vegetables, and a gratuity at Michaelmas (Septem- 
ber 29). AH told, these gratuities amount, under 
favorable conditions, to perhaps fifty dollars, making 
his total income somewhere about three dollars and a 



120 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

half or four dollars and a half per week ; but it should 
be mentioned that in some districts we have been in, 
the " Michaelmas money," of say twenty-five or thirty 
dollars, is considered by the laborer as his especial 
perquisite, free from wife and child, and too often is 
squandered at the public-house in a general roistering. 

With such wages for the laborer, of course it be- 
comes necessary for every member of the household 
not an infant to be earning something. As education 
is compulsory, certain hours must be spent by the 
children in school until they are ten or twelve years 
of age ; but their spare hours and holidays are 
often spent with their parents in the fields, helping to 
earn their sustenance. A bright boy of fifteen, who 
can accomplish nearly as much as a man, is worth a 
dollar and a half per week. By the day, boys and 
girls are supposed to be worth to the farmer from 
twenty-five to thirty cents, and women forty cents ; 
while the price of "piece-work" in the fields and 
gardens is such that a capable man can earn sixty to 
eighty cents, which is considered a good daily wage in 
the height of the season. It must be remembered, 
however, that the English farmer employs his men 
the year around, winter or summer, work or no work, 
giving them " piece-work " when possible, and at 
other times paying monthly wages. 

Clad in rough clothing, corduroy being a familiar 
material, a leathern strap encircling each leg above 
the calf, to keep his trousers comfortably baggy at the 
knee, slouchy and dirty, smelling offensively of vile to- 
bacco, uncouth in speech and manner, the ordinary 
farm laborer, while a useful, is not an attractive crea- 
ture. The brightest of the peasant boys, after gradu- 



Village Life. 12 1 

ating from the local Board school, float off to the large 
towns to become porters or to go into railway employ, 
or mayhap to swell the ever-increasing army of the city 
unemployed, while thousands annually emigrate to the 
United States or the colonies. And so one finds, as 
a rule, only the dullards and the old men remaining 
on the farms, thus lowering the quality of the class. 

A conversation I had with a large Hampshire farmer 
was significant of the situation. He appeared to have 
more people in his employ, old and young, than he 
had any legitimate use for, and countenanced a degree 
of shirking on their part that quite surprised me. His 
defence was that these people must be supported 
somehow. If he discharged them, they would " come 
on the parish " for support ; and he, being one of the 
chief poor-rate payers, would be obliged to help sustain 
the burden. He thought it better for them and for 
him to keep them to at least the semblance of labor, 
and not allow them to sink into chronic pauperism. I 
found a similar state of affairs in other parishes and 
counties where I had an opportunity to make inquiry, 
and must say that this condition of affairs seemed to 
me pitiful indeed. l 

1 It is pleasing to note, however, that good judges declare 
English pauperism to have steadily decreased in the past thiity 
years. There are now, reports J. F. Wilkinson, no more than 
350,000 paupers over sixty-five years of age, against double that 
number a quarter of a century ago. The Friendly societies have 
done much towards keeping the superannuated from the work- 
house, by inculcating " the principles of thrift and self-help and 
co-operation." These societies have at present, I am informed, 
a membership of 4,500,000, and funds aggregating fully $100,- 
000,000. A large south-county farmer and prominent Liberal 
writes me, after my return to America, " We are doing our 
best to fight pauperism, though it goes slow/' 



122 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

An American, accustomed to our spread-out meth- 
ods, with individual proprietorship and every cottage 
set in its own patch of ground, at first finds it diffi- 
cult to believe the census returns of compact Euro- 
pean communities. Even in this little village I am 
describing, with woods and fields spreading out for 
miles in every direction, humanity is packed away 
almost as closely as it is in the heart of London. 
The cottages have scarcely more land than one sees 
in the front flower-garden. For the most part house 
abuts house, front and rear. Peer into the alley- 
ways or courtyards and you will find houses empty- 
ing out into them as thick as they can stand. In the 
little story-and-a-half thatched cottages two or three 
families are occupying space which in an American 
village would be thought too contracted for one. 
They are crowded like wasps in a nest, often with a 
promiscuity not altogether pleasant. At first sight 
you would say this village possessed two or three 
hundred souls, but find that it can count up a thou- 
sand. It is a land of rent-paying and heavy taxes, 
and the business of huddling into as small and cheap 
holdings as possible has in all these centuries of ex- 
perience been reduced to a science. 

Having no vegetable-garden at home, the artisans 
and laborers have had set aside for them allotments 
in one of the squire's fields contiguous to the hamlet. 
The stranger approaching the allotment field for the 
first time would suppose it to be the property of a 
professional market-gardener, being carefully divided 
into equal- sized rectangular strips, with narrow paths 
between. These strips are the plots of the several 
villagers, each paying to the squire's agent a fixed 



Village Life. 123 

annual rental for his two or thiee square rods, equiva- 
lent to a rate of about ten dollars an acre. It is a 
busy and rather a merry scene in the long summer 
twilight to see the villagers out in the allotments, en- 
joying the cool evening air and gossiping over the 
affairs of the parish, — the men leisurely plying their 
hoes, the children on their knees plucking weeds, 
and the women either similarly engaged or sitting 
in groups hard by, doing the family mending. 

The squire's chief tenant is the farmer. " An 
agricultural gentleman," the county paper styles him, 
and he most certainly is a gentleman in agriculture. 
The average American farmer gets up before sunrise 
to milk his cows, and drudging all day in barn and 
field, with an earnestness he could not instil into his 
servants, drags his weary bones to bed soon after sup- 
per, and is an old man when he ought to be in his 
prime. The English agriculturist, on the other hand, 
leaves this sort of thing to his laborers, and issuing 
his mandates to the foremen at his several farmsteads, 
acts merely the part of general manager. You visit 
him at his home, and you will find that his household 
is conducted on much the same lines as that of a 
manufacturer ; indeed, he looks upon his business as 
simply a business, and not as manual drudgery, — 
such a business as any gentleman might conduct who 
had the requisite scientific skill, executive tact, and 
capital. 

Farming methods are expensive in England. This 
sort of management causes more waste than where 
the farmer is his own laborer ; then, again, the English 
farmer is, as well, a sportsman, and foxes and rabbits, 
which it were a sin to exterminate, often create wide- 



124 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

spread damage ; in the treatment of many crops old 
and cumbersome tools and methods are used, because 
Englishmen abhor change j the soil has in many dis- 
tricts utterly lost its native strength from centuries of 
over-cropping, and is now no better than a medium 
for the transmutation of fertilizers into vegetable mat- 
ter ; and we have already seen that the farmer, in his 
capacity of poor-rate payer, has a patriarchal duty to 
perform and cannot control his own labor account. 
When you add to these hampering conditions the 
fact that the competition of American beef and 
wheat, French and Spanish vegetables and fruits, and 
Australian mutton has seriously lowered the prices of 
native products, it will be wondered how the English 
agriculturist can longer exist and still pay an annual 
rental averaging five dollars per acre. 

Certainly hundreds of the class have been crowded 
to the wall in the past dozen years. Nevertheless, in 
every community there are old-fashioned farmers still 
apparently as flourishing as ever. The chief farmer 
of this village I have in mind is just such a man as 
Punch loves to picture : six feet high, broad of chest, 
still broader at the belt ; a jolly face, a double chin, 
and enormous jowls ; a severity of countenance that 
often is lightened by the heartiest of smiles; his 
leathern riding-gaiters always buttoned on, as if just 
off for a tour of inspection of his several farms, or for 
a visit to the market town. He loves his ale, but in- 
sists in his husky, jovial way on your taking wine. 
He is a Conservative of the Conservatives, wants an 
embargo placed on " that wretched stuff from America 
they call beef over there," and " takes the chair " at 
his party meetings in the old town-hall. He reads 



Village Life. 125 

the "London Times" or the "Standard" every morn- 
ing before breakfast ; and being a devout churchman, 
after breakfast has morning prayers, to which the 
house-maids, in their cleanest aprons and daintiest 
caps, are summoned by the mistress's bell. 

The children are away at boarding-schools, in far- 
away towns, and are gathered in at the family board 
only at holiday-time. The mistress herself, though 
guiltless of a knowledge of butter-making or of other 
laborious accomplishments of American farmers' wives, 
is a comely matron of affairs, a most exemplary 
mother, a model wife and housekeeper. She is, with 
the parson's wife, interested in the practical charities 
of the parish, — a woman with a serious mission at her 
door, and ability and heart modestly to execute it. 

Perhaps the most picturesque character we shall 
see in the village is the rector of the Established 
Church, — the "parson," in the homely vernacular of 
the district. Now and then we may enter a parish 
where the living is in the hands of the bishop ; again, 
it may be in the gift of the Ecclesiastical Commission, 
— a powerful committee of clericals and laymen who 
have in charge the vast temporal affairs of the Estab- 
lishment ; but in this case the living is the gift of a 
person in the north counties, who never saw our vil- 
lage, and possibly could not with any degree of cer- 
tainty point it out on the map. So a score or so of 
years ago, our friend the parson settled down among 
these people as their spiritual adviser, without so much 
as saying " by your leave," and has been here ever 
since. 

It is not always that such, settlements produce 
happy results. It is one of the all-too-numerous 



126 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

evils of the Establishment that, presumably as a pun- 
ishment for some of its unknown sins, a parish is 
saddled for a generation with one in a gown who 
has, if popular opinion goes for anything, little re- 
spect for God or man. But in this case the parson 
chances to have been well-chosen. An Oxford man, 
modestly learned, his soul is as benevolent as his 
smile, and his presence in this far-away hamlet of 
rustics is to all a living blessing. Familiar with the 
antiquities of the old gray sanctuary, an earnest stu- 
dent of Nature as well as of man, he teaches many a 
practical lesson of duty to his stolid flock from the 
legends of the venerable brasses and the secrets of 
the hedge-rows, lifting for a time the dark curtain of 
their lives, and casting a halo of love around the 
gloomy pile which wheels its daily shadows over their 
fathers' bones. 

The parson's principal parishioner is the squire, 
who of course is at the core of things, though the 
social gulf which separates him from the common 
folk is great. The principal subscriber hereabout to 
the county hounds, he entertains his city friends with 
handsome dignity during hunt week, and at the meet 
is the wonder and admiration of the yokels. He has 
had his turn at Parliament, for his borough's vote is 
in his pocket, but tired of an arena so large that he 
was lost in it, prefers now to serve his country as 
president of the Conservative Club. His tastes are 
more akin to those of a farmer than a statesman; 
next to his wife and children his stables and the 
subscription kennels are his chief pride. He thinks 
the country is "going to the dogs with all this free 
education rattle-trap, stuffing the heads of peasants' 



Village Life. 127 

sons with nonsense which spoils them for the plough 
and makes farm laborers scarce, while it over-popu- 
lates the cities, causing the working class to be dis- 
satisfied with their lot and yet not giving them a 
better." 

The villagers take off their hats to him as he rides 
or drives by with gentle Lady Maud, — his meeker and 
sweeter half these thirty years, but still as bright of 
eye and lithe of form as at fifty only an English rural 
gentlewoman can be. When they pass up the main 
aisle of the church, on Sunday mornings, the congre- 
gation rises in respect, 1 from the old laborers in their 
white smocks, who have free seats beneath the gallery, 
and nervously handle their hats, to our dignified and 
portly friend the farmer, in the senior church-warden's 
pew beneath the pulpit stairs. When Sir Gerald and 
Lady Maud at last go the way of earth, they will join 
their ancestors beneath the stone slabs of the chancel 
floor, their effigies, in correct marble, clasping hands, 
and their saintly praises writ in words of brass above 
the communion table. 

In the life of our village, next to the church the 
most notable institution is the inn. A solidly built 
old structure is The White Swan. Its chief entrance 
is through the great arch which leads to the inner 
court, on either side of which are the bar and the 
coffee-room, with the stables at the far end. Minus 
the galleries, which are now enclosed corridors, it is 
pretty much the same inn-court as when used by 
strolling players in the long ago. The bar-maid 
comes out to greet you with a courtesy, and turning 

1 A custom now in vogue only in a few isolated parishes, 
such as the one I describe. 



128 Our Cycling Tour in Engla?id. 

you over to Boots and the chamber-maid, you are led 
up strange old oaken stairways and through dark 
passages into the brightest and cheeriest of rooms. 
The old four-posted bed, with its heavy hangings and 
its mountain of feathers, invites to delicious slumber ; 
over the dainty white sash-curtains you peer through 
the latticed windows upon a peaceful street; and 
just without hangs the painted effigy of a white swan, 
suspended in a fantastic frame of sixteenth-century 
iron-work. You have a grate-fire at your command, 
antique chairs, an old tall clock in the corner, writing 
materials spread for your use on the mahogany table, 
and can have your meals, which are always specially 
prepared for you, and at the hour of your selection, 
either served in your apartment or in the public 
coffee-room, where, however, you will in nine cases 
out of ten find yourself the only guest, — all this do- 
mestic machinery being set in motion for your indi- 
vidual welfare. The waiter is your attendant spirit, 
Boots your willing slave, the chamber-maid promptly 
responsive to your bell. Of course this means tips, 
when at last the waiter brings your bill, Boots emerges 
from the scullery to carry your bags to the station or 
to order out your wheel, and the chamber-maid, acci- 
dentally passing through the court, stops to smile a 
sweet farewell ; but one becomes reconciled to tip- 
ping when it brings such service as this, so different 
from that to be met with at an American village 
tavern. 

This is exactly the same old coaching inn that we 
have read about in Dickens and Thackeray and " Tom 
Brown." The express coaches do not stop here, as 
they did in the olden time, because there are no 



Village Life. 129 

longer any express coaches ; but the cyclists and the 
four-in-hand parties do, on their eternal round of 
touring through Britain, and they are doubtless full 
as profitable customers. The inn is conducted al- 
most wholly by the landlord's women-folk. He him- 
self has in charge the posting establishment, with- 
out which appendage no inn is "complete. His myr- 
midon is the ostler, who may be seen any hour of 
the day, — great, careless, raw-boned fellow, in his 
jockey cap and sporting leggings, — sponging off the 
harnesses and traps, or charring the cook through the 
kitchen window. 

The traveller who is a teetotaller may be in The 
White Swan for a week together and never see the 
landlady. Her domain is the bar parlor, and this 
the bureau of administration. The tap-room, for the 
pedestrian who " just drops in " for his glass of toddy, 
or the mechanic and the farm laborer, opens direct 
from the street, and is severely plain, with its high- 
backed settles and deal tables ; the counter at the far 
end, presided over by the bar-maid, is formidable 
with massive brass pumps which bring up the ale 
from great casks in the cellar. The privileged few 
are admitted through the inner court into the bar 
parlor, to the rear of the tap ; and here we may find 
the buxom, smiling, bowing, deferential mistress of 
The White Swan. Here is a cheerful grate-fire ; 
highly colored lithographs of fox-hunting and cricket- 
ing scenes adorn the walls, in company with "The 
Mother's Kiss," and " Feeding the Robins ; " there is 
an ample table with writing materials, and the morn- 
ing " London Times," or " Standard," or " News " is 
convenient to hand ; easy-chairs are set against the 
9 



130 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

wall, and a bit of Brussels is on the floor ; while in an 
old cabinet that may have seen duty in a baronial 
castle are some specially choice liquors. Warming 
his legs before the fire, the squire's steward discusses 
politics with the solicitor's clerk ; or Farmer George, 
stirring the sugar in his glass, talks with the doctor 
about the condition of the wool-clip ; while now and 
then the landlady, bustling about with her manifold 
duties and her directions to the maids who come now 
and then for orders, gets in a pleasant word or two 
with her more distinguished patrons, and charms 
everybody. There is such genuine honesty about it 
all, such delightful frankness and simplicity, that it 
tends to reconcile one for the time to some of the 
habits of the country. 

But this scene in the bar parlor of The White Swan 
is the bright side ; the dark side is in the tap-room, 
and in the cheap public-houses, which exist only as 
liquor-shops, farther down the street. This little vil- 
lage of a thousand people supports a dozen such; 
and yet the humanitarians in their conventions an- 
nually ask one another what can be done to improve 
the condition of the agricultural laborer. 

There is no longer any use for the rusty bull-ring 
out in the market-place yonder, — silent witness of 
how much merrier Old England was than now. But 
our villagers must have sport, for they are no less 
Englishmen than their ancestors of the bull-baiting 
days. You may see them of a summer evening, when 
not in the allotments, playing cricket or football on 
the green. There is a half- holiday every week for all 
save the agricultural laborers, who seldom have such a 
luxury vouchsafed them ; and then the " 'Arries and 



Village Life. 131 

'Arriets " set off on foot, or crowded into donkey- 
carts, to see the neighboring attraction, be it park, 
cliff, or castle ruin, where, with their irreverent speech, 
their beer bottles, and their sandwiches, they make 
life unbearable for sentimental tourists. 

The " recreation-ground," under the management 
of a club, is a feature of the village. Here cricket 
and football matches, with the teams of the neighbor- 
ing hamlet, are quite the social events of the season ; 
and here summer charity fetes are given, the exercises 
of speaking, singing, and band-playing being sometimes 
concluded with a fireworks exhibition which is de- 
scribed in the county papers as " a most brilliant and 
fitting finale to an occasion of rare enjoyment." 

In the town-hall they have, for the benefit of the 
church, flower-shows and bazaars, " under the gracious 
patronage " of Lady Maud, — for nearly every public 
entertainment in England must be, as a matter of 
good form, under somebody's patronage, from the 
Queen down to the squire's wife. And then there are 
the annual agricultural-products show, the monthly- 
cattle, sheep, and horse fairs, and the weekly market- 
day. It is at the fairs that the English rustic shines. 
There are sure to be athletic sports, with prizes given 
by the squire and Farmer George, — sack and wheel- 
barrow races, contests in jumping, throwing, and 
wrestling, greased pigs to be caught, and a greased 
pole to be climbed for tempting prizes hung at the 
top. On market-days, the great hall of the inn, built 
for the county harvest balls, is set with long tables 
white with rare linen and burdened with eatables, with 
a chair of honor for the master of \he market. This 
is the day of days with mine hostess of The White 



132 Our Cycling Tom' in England. 

Swan : and the chance traveller will have on this bus- 
tling occasion to take pot-luck, with neither waiter, 
Boots, nor chamber-maid at his beck and call. 

The English village workman's political arena is 
not broad. Now and then he has a chance to vote 
for a member of Parliament, and oftener to attend a 
political meeting ; for the member is fond of address- 
ing — he calls it " counselling with " — his constitu- 
ents when a crisis is on in the Commons. It is the 
manner he has of speaking to the country. The 
classes do the political thinking and manage the clubs 
and the meetings, so that the masses have little else 
to do than to follow their lead. In elections for 
the new county councils the workman is a trifle 
more independent, the issues being more easily com- 
prehended ; while the selection of poor-law guardians 
and parish officers is still nearer to his mind. 

Although he is rapidly improving in this respect, 
the average rustic's comprehension as yet gets little 
higher than the affairs of the " union." This is the 
union, or combination, of several contiguous parishes 
for the management in common of roads and work- 
houses. The officers of the combination having in 
charge the former, are the highway board. They 
choose as surveyor a professional road- maker, in 
whose hands the business is practically placed, with 
the result that English highways are among the 
best in the world. The poor-law guardians have 
charge of the union workhouse, or the "union," as it 
is familiarly called ; and it is for the support of this 
institution and its accompanying system of outdoor 
relief that the bull: of taxes is paid. Pauperism is 
England's skeleton in the closet. 



Village Life. 133 

Will the farm laborer ever develop into anything 
better than the stolid, beer-drinking drudge of to-day? 
Will the cause of conservative temperance reform ever 
be backed by the stout favor of public opinion, as it 
certainly is in America? Will England ever be freed 
from the shackles of Church Establishment ? Will the 
rigidity of caste spirit be always as great as now ? In 
a word, what is to be the future of our village ? Such 
are the questions which crowd upon us as we com- 
mune with these rustic folk. 

Seeing how deep-rooted are the customs of the 
English, how tenacious they are of their opinions, 
how prejudiced against new methods or fresh ideas, 
one is at first disposed to conclude that rural England 
will ever be Old England, — the dream of the poets 
and the despair of reformers. In the light of history, 
however, we know that the change must eventually 
come, — perhaps imperceptibly come in a long period 
of years, possibly come with a bound, as great parlia- 
mentary reforms are apt to come. 

But though we could easily suggest reforms, sadly 
needful, what American would wish at heart to have 
the England we love so well altogether Americanized ? 
" With all her faults," she is to us the mother-land, 
the cradle of our race, our history, and our literature. 
With her ruins levelled to make room for villas, her 
forests, her moors, and her great ducal parks redeemed 
into farms, our little village the seat of a manufacturing 
"boom," the bar parlor closed, the peasantry de- 
veloped out of existence, the squire, the farmer, and 
the parson no longer supreme in the social scale, all 
romantic color faded out, who so poor among Ameri- 
cans as longer to do reverence to Merry England ? 




CHAPTER VII. 

WILTSHIRE DOWNS AND SALISBURY PLAIN. 

OALISBURY, Wednesday, June 10 {continued) . 
^ The character of the country changes quite ma- 
terially soon after you cross the border from Hamp- 
shire into Wiltshire. This afternoon was chiefly spent 
in climbing the steep grades of the Wiltshire Downs. 
The sky was cloudless, the sun scorching, and spas- 
modic gusts of wind would twirl the pulverized 
macadam into small sand-spouts, which mercilessly 
pelted us on our way. 

One weary " topper," near West Grimstead, seemed 
interminable, and we paused frequently by the roadside 
to rest, for our well-laden machines are not easily 
pushed up such an incline. No friendly hedges here, 
or overhanging trees, such as so often have given us 
friendly shade in the southeastern counties. Our high- 
way, white and staring, straight as the crow flies, 
follows the crest of a steep chalk-ridge up to the far- 
away summit. The treeless plain spreads away on 
either side, with its dusty gray carpet of heather and 
scrub-grass; great flocks of white sheep nibble the 



Wiltshire Downs and Salisbury Plain. 135 

scant herbage, each group tended by shepherd and 
dog ; over in the narrow green valleys, which course 
gracefully through the moor, are just visible the 
thatched roofs of little farmsteads ; and from out a 
hollow, far off beyond a dark plantation of firs, there 
ascends to us the merry jangle of church-clock bells, 
chiming in anticipation of the hourly strike. 

A singular red-brick tower, perhaps thirty feet in 
height and ten in diameter, with a low door, one or 
two unglazed windows near the conical roof, and the 
circular wall laid out in sunken panels, crowns the 
great hill. At first we think it possibly the relic of the 
Danish invasions, — verily something worth the climb. 
But a passing cyclist assures us it is " only a shepherd's 
hut, or some such thing," and thus dashes to the 
ground our archaeological hopes. 

At all events, we are compensated by the view from 
this lofty crest of West Grimstead. Beyond, the 
tumbled country rolls down in graceful terraces to- 
wards the Avon, — not Shakespeare's river ; there are 
plenty of other Avons in Old England. From the 
sun, now veiled in masses of fleecy cloud, radiate 
broad, sharply defined bands of light and shadow. 
Dense black clouds hang upon the northwest horizon, 
and presage rain upon the morrow. Piercing the 
heavy mist which hung as a pall upon the river and 
marked its course southward, the great gray spire 
of Salisbury Cathedral towered conspicuous in the 
scene. 

Coasting leisurely down the eastern rim of the Avon's 
broad basin, we had striking vistas, right and left, — 
now woodlands, now sheltered ravines down beside 
us; now great patches of gorse ablaze with yellow 



136 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

bloom ; now bleak and rugged slopes dotted with flocks 
which must range briskly if they would gain a meal 
from this scant pasturage. 

Now and then we meet or catch up with such a 
drove passing along the airy highway; for feeding- 
grounds are frequently changed, and the life of shep- 
herd and dogs is not altogether an easy one. An 
almost impenetrable cloud of dust moving towards 
us would announce the approach of three or four 
hundred sheep or lambs, and from without the 
smudge would come a chorus of half-smothered baas 
in varying notes of pensiveness. Trudging behind 
were shepherd, boy, and dog, white with dust, all 
three turning blinking eyes towards us, as perched high 
on the bank, we would wait for the shrouded cavalcade 
to pass. We saw a flock of lambs turned into a field 
just ahead of us. The evolutions of the body, as skil- 
fully directed by the collie, were interesting ; and as 
three hundred pairs of little brown ears bobbed ner- 
vously up and down in a sea of woolly white, during 
the final scramble through the narrow gate, the effect 
was quite ludicrous. 

Milestones abound in England ; and they are most 
welcome to the cyclist on a hot day, with many up- 
grades. But while toiling up West Grimstead hill, we 
found two stones in succession conveying the informa- 
tion that we still had ahead of us " 6 m. to Sarum," — 
the local name for Salisbury. At a time when every mile 
counted, this was most discouraging. However, as 
we bowled down gently for the last five miles, we soon 
forgot our aches and pains, and were willing to forgive 
the mistake, — although it is surprising it is not recti- 
fied. Those duplicate stone posts are moss-covered 



Wiltshire Downs and Salisbury Plain. 137 

and green from age, and yet no one has taken it upcn 
himself to correct the error. The English are indeed 
conservative. 

A mile or two from Salisbury (sixteen thousand in- 
habitants) we reached the Avon. Winding lazily 
through springy meadows, with several drainage 
canals alongside, it reminds one much of the Itchen. 
From the rustic bridge — where we paused for a few 
minutes, and some young cyclists slowly walked 
by with their machines, while critically examining 

W 's American safety — the view of the cathedral 

is most bewitching. The gray, vine-covered walls and 
vermilion roofs of the town houses formed a pretty 
setting for this most graceful of all English temples, as 
its stately spire was glorified against the mellow light 
of the western sky. It seemed as though we had 
nowhere in England met a more fascinating picture. 
Later, in seeking our welcome at the Red Lion Inn, 
we wheeled by the lofty pile, springing gracefully from 
a generous carpet of greensward, and were now in 
doubt which was the most charming, the near view or 
the far. 

Thursday, nth. We were off through the north 
gate of Salisbury this morning, at a quarter past ten, 
headed up the valley of the Avon, for Old Sarum and 
Stonehenge. The storm-clouds in the northeast last 
evening meant nothing. It has been a brilliant day, 
with a light, cooling breeze. 

A mile out, over a smooth white road, is Old Sarum, 
one of the most interesting historical remains in Eng- 
land. This ancient fortress crowns a considerable 
eminence on the east bank of the Avon, commanding 
an extensive view of Salisbury town and its fertile 



138 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

meadows to the west and south, and on the north and 
east of the rolling downs of Salisbury Plain. West- 
ward there is a sharp declivity to the river road ; east- 
ward a steep ridge, possibly an artificial highway, con- 
nects the fortress with the surrounding country. 

The central ring, where the citadel was placed, was 
doubtless artificially raised ; it is surrounded by a high 
earth rampart, and outside of this are the remains of 
a deep fosse. On the east side of the ring are still 
observable remains of the masonry of the principal 
gate, from which there was a bridge over the fosse. A 
large level area, where the greater part of the city was 
built, surrounded the citadel, and this again was 
guarded by an earthen wall and outer ditch. Below 
these, at the foot of the slope, the suburbs of the city 
once spread out over what are now open meadows to 
the southeast and west. 

Turning from the highway into a broad pasture to 
the east of what is still provincially called " the 
castle," we chained our machines to a sheep-hurdle, 
and began the ascent. A path upward through a 
wheat-field brought us to the ridgeway, where a flock 
of sheep were grazing under the watchful eyes of a 
boy and his dog. It was a stiff climb over the out- 
works, which had ditches at the corners; then we 
clambered down and up the great outer fosse and 
entered upon the exterior ring of the city, which is 
perhaps over a mile around, and now sown to wheat. 
The inner fosse, V-shaped, is still some thirty feet in 
depth, its sides well grown with large trees and bushes. 
From its floor a steep path leads up to the remains of 
the old gate, through which we enter upon the circle 
of the citadel. As elsewhere, this is carpeted with sod 



Wiltshire Downs and Salisbury Plain. 139 

and clumps of brush. Two or three damp depressions 
are all that is left of the original wells. 

Standing on the grass-grown ramparts of Old 
Sarum, looking far and wide over Wiltshire Downs 
and Salisbury Plain, it is difficult to realize that here 
on this bleak and lonely hill-top once stood the city ; 
and that the meadows down there, where old Salis- 
bury town and its mediaeval cathedral seem to have 
been forever planted, were then the wilderness. As 
the strange story of this deserted stronghold comes 
back to us from almost forgotten readings of youth, 
we realize how flavorless ancient history is, unless 
one be upon the spot, and seek in imagination to live 
it over under the inspiration of the hour. 

Antiquarians cannot agree as to who first planted 
Old Sarum. There are those who have thought they 
detected here the work of Phoenicians. More attrib- 
ute the earliest fortifications to Britons, and hold that 
this was among the fortresses wrested from them by 
the Roman general Vespasian. All agree that it was 
one of the principal Roman stations. It seems prob- 
able that the citadel itself was of British origin, and 
most of the exterior ditches and walls Roman. 

In the year 552 Old Sarum was captured after a 
great siege by the West Saxons ; and for over six cen- 
turies thereafter it was the scene of many bitter strug- 
gles and important events in English history. An 
opulent city sprang up within these circular walls of 
earth, which was often the seat of the Wessex kings. 
It is recorded that the great Alfred ordered " Leofric 
of Wiltunshire not only to preserve the castle of 
Sarum, but to make another ditch to be defended 
by pallisadoes." In 960 Edgar here convoked a 



140 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

Parliament to consult as to the best method of ex- 
pelling the Danes. In the reign of the Conqueror, a 
magnificent cathedral church was founded on this 
hill-top, and its choir " surpassed every other in the 
island." It was in 1096 that William Rufus held a 
council here, at which the Earl of Owe was, in the 
king's presence, tried and tortured for treason. Here 
dwelt Henry I., in 11 00, when to him came Arch- 
bishop Anselm, haughtily refusing to do homage. It 
was Roger, Bishop of Sarum, whom Henry left guar- 
dian of the realm, and who helped Stephen gain the 
throne ; but afterwards falling into the disfavor of this 
unkingly king, Roger was obliged to purchase peace 
by resigning Sarum Castle to the crown. In the 
quarrels between Stephen and Princess Matilda, Sa- 
rum suffered much, being occupied and despoiled 
alternately by both parties. 

Says Holinshed, " In the times of the civil warres, 
the soldiers of the castle and chanons of Old Sarum 
fell at Oddes, inso-much that after open brawls they 
felle at last to sad blows." During the time of 
Bishop Poore, who commenced his prelacy in 1 2 1 7, 
affairs had come to such a stage that the Pope or- 
dered the dismantling of the old cathedral : " Foras- 
much as your church is built within the compass of 
the fortifications of Sarum, it is subject to so many 
inconveniences and oppressions that you cannot re- 
side in the same without corporal peril; for being 
situated on a lofty place, it is, as it were, continually 
shaken by the collision of the winds, so that when 
you are celebrating the Divine offices you cannot 
hear one another, the place is so noisy ; . . . and on 
solemn days, the faithful being willing to visit the 



Wiltshire Downs and Salisbury Plain. 141 

said church, entrance is denied them by the keepers 
of the castle, alleging that the fortress is in danger." 
And thus it came about that Old Sarum Cathedral 
was deserted, and a new church — " one of the most 
poetic designs of the Middle Ages," says Fergusson 

— was built on the present site, down by the river- 
bank. The hill town was ruined, for the people fol- 
lowed the canons, and with the old materials rebuilt 
their houses under the shadow of the new spire. 

For a time the fortress itself was maintained, but it 
gradually fell into disuse, until, in the reign of Henry 
VIII., the antiquarian, Leland, could write of it : 
'<< This thing hath been auncient, and exceeding 
strong ; but syns the building of New Saresbyri it 
went totally to mine. . . . Much notable ruinous 
building of this castelle yet there remaynith." In 
this year of grace, 1891, there remains no vestige 
whatever of the once proud city and noble " cas- 
telle " which, in ages past, played so prominent a 
part in English history, save some rude rubble-work 
where once stood the gate of the citadel. 

Descending to our machines, we resumed our jour- 
ney northward along the white chalk road. Now and 
then a little hamlet with its clump of trees hugs closely 
the highway, and a public-house announces refresh- 
ments for beast and man. For the most part, how- 
ever, the country is bare, and there are wide stretches 
of grazing land, with comparatively scant population. 
We begin to realize that we are upon Salisbury Plain. 

Much of the way to Amesbury — eight miles out 

— the plain is fairly well cultivated. Here and 
there is good black loam ; but in general the soil is 
yellow or whitish, and sown thick with flints which 



142 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

chink merrily in the fields, against ploughshares and 
laborers' hoes. 

For several miles the broad highway is practically 
identical with the Roman road between Old Sarum, 
Ogbury Camp, and other outlying military fortresses 
of the Empire. Now and then it swerves from the 
ancient way, English engineers having, by judicious 
grading, somewhat straightened the line. In such cases 
the old road — now grown to grass, but still as flat as 
a floor and flanked by ridges of turf — is clearly out- 
lined in the fields to one side. Much of this straight- 
ening must have been done in comparatively recent 
years, for often one sees milestones, now moss- 
covered and decrepit, still standing by the old path, 
— side-tracked by modern improvement. The road 
chiefly follows the crest of ridges, — the Roman ways 
in England were built at a time when the lowlands 
were undrained ; there were fewer trees on the shal- 
low soil of dry chalk-downs than in the moist dales ; 
and again, the Romans felt safer along the hill-tops, 
in a time of almost perpetual warfare with a lurking 
foe, than in the hemmed-in valleys. 

The country spreads to the horizon in grassy folds, 
and often, far and wide, not a hedge is to be seen. 
Small clumps of graceful firs here and there dot the 
otherwise treeless moor; and the narrow little val- 
leys, like gashes in the undulating plain, are outlined 
by dark streaks of low timber-growth. As we pro- 
ceed, cultivation is more scant, and herbage thinner, 
while the gorse is stunted and backward ; but in any 
direction the eye may rest upon broad white patches on 
the hillsides, indicating the presence of grazing flocks. 

We have frequent long spins on the perfectly 



Wiltshire Downs and Salisbury Plain. 143 

metalled way ; and our climbs are not irksome, for 
the temperature is comfortable on this breezy plateau, 
and in the clear atmosphere we have wide views 
afield. It is difficult to believe that the little Eng- 
land of the school atlases has in its heart so majestic 
a wilderness. We are apt to think of our mother isle 
as crowded, and so it is, in spots; but there is an 
abundance of breathing room left, and all manner of 
scenery close at hand. 

On a wildly picturesque prominence, whence one 
can see for many miles over the rolling plain, a fat, 
good-natured old laborer, seated before a heap of 
flints, was cracking " metal " for the highway. He 
looked lonesome enough up here, and seemed glad 
to stop his pounding for a chat. The view was 
fine, he admitted, but added that it was a very 
bleak place in winter, — especially last winter, with 
the greatest snow-storms he ever saw, sweeping like 
devils over the moor, and drifts six feet deep before 
the cottages in the hollows. There were no human 
dwellings within two miles of this spot ; but over 
there in the deep-sunken valleys little villages were 
nestled, although we could not see the houses. A 
natty young man, well mounted, came along on 
horseback as we sat by this roadside philosopher, 
and ambled quickly by. " Thy mozheens, they 'rt 
bitter thin thaht," quoth our friend, nodding towards 
the horseman ; " thee 'd zoon out-toire t' 'orses, — 
ay, an' t' beest o' thim ! My ! boot thee 'st gooten 
t' wye to git threw thees wurruld ! " And he sighed. 
I think this goodman not wedded to his solitary 
stone heap ; he has the spirit of a traveller in him, 
and clearly envied us. 



144 O ur Cyc!i?ig Tour in England. 

A mile or two farther on, a friendly hay-rick abut- 
ting the highway afforded us shelter from the cool 
wind while we ate our lunch. While thus engaged, 
several carriages of tourists rolled by on their way 
from Salisbury to Stonehenge, and I am not surprised 
that they smiled among themselves at our simple 
gypsy fashion of doing the lion of Wiltshire ; we 
would not, however, have exchanged places with 
them. Now and then a carter passed, sitting round- 
shouldered on his seat, his hulk of a shire horse 
walking leisurely, as though time were a shoreless 
ocean. As we were about through, a police sergeant 
hove in sight, walking his dreary beat between far- 
distant villages, — for there is no part of England 
unpatrolled by county constabulary. At first he was 
a mere speck on the horizon, but coming along with 
goodly stride, was soon upon us, — a tall, raw-boned, 
red-headed Irishman of some forty-five summers, a 
gleam of native sunshine peering through the mask of 
British officialism. 

The sergeant stiffly tipped his helmet as he walked 
by, and remarked on "a foine day, sir ! " The spell 
was broken when I asked of him the correct road to 
Amesbury, — an unnecessary question, with the ord- 
nance map spread before us, blank side up, as a 
table-cloth. The guardian of the peace was soon 

chatting freely by our side ; and when W offered 

him some lunch, his honest Hibernian face beamed 
with delight. 

He had friends in America, he said, but " whither 
in Philamadelfy or Tchicargo, begorra, I don't be re- 
mimberin', sir ! It 's somewhere in thim parts ! " 
As he walked by our side to the top of the next 



Wiltshire Downs and Salisbury Plain. 145 

hill, he asked if we had any police in America, 
and did they have as long beats as his? His own 
round was " nigh onter fifteen moiles a day, sir, — 
a long pull, as you hear me!" It was his duty to 
visit five far-separated valleys every week, and in 
each of these places was stationed a man under his 
control. " I wish, sir," he said, as he shook hands 
in farewell at the hill-top, and we mounted for the 
down-spin of two miles into Amesbury, — "I wish, av 
ye 'd be see'n' inny o' moi fri'nds in Ameriky, over 
there, ye 'd be a-tillin' thim to stay there, an' not 
come back to the divil's own country, an' they know 
av they 're will off ! An' if they ax how 's O'Connor, 
— and that 's my name, sir, an' I 'm not ashamed uv 
it ! — jist be a-tillin' uv 'em, sir, ye seen the poor 
divil a-walkin' Salisbury Plain loike an onaisy speerit, 
sir ! — an' wishin' good luck to you, sir, you an' your 
good lady ! God bliss you ! " Sergeant O'Connor 
stood rigidly at salute as we whizzed off with a merry 
good-by ; and when next we turned to look back, he 
was lost to view. 

Amesbury is a quaint little village ranging along the 
east bank of the x\von. Its narrow streets abound in 
pretty thatched cottages, with half-doors and lattice- 
windows, and there are the customary brewery and 
flouring-mill. Amesbury Abbey, in days of old, was 
most picturesquely situated, and in its prime must 
have been a considerable establishment. The church 
is now all that remains, and that is nearly buried in a 
wealth of old beeches. It shows evidences of numer- 
ous changes in the passing centuries : the height of 
the roof has been frequently altered ; old arches have 
been walled up, and new ones pierced ; and around 
10 



146 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

are the foundation walls of a much larger sanctuary 
than that we now see. 

The Duke of Queensbury's beautiful estate, near by, 
occupies the greater part of the old monastic grounds, 
and retains the name of Amesbury Abbey. It was 
in this beauty-spot that Gay visited the duke and 
duchess of his generation, and wrote the " Beggar's 
Opera." 

We emerge from Amesbury over a neat stone bridge 
thrown across the Avon, and enter upon an avenue 
overarched with lindens ; in the deep shade there is a 
luxuriance of foliage, and tall ferns gracefully nod their 
fronds in the gentle breeze. On the right-hand side 
of the road, as we ascend to the table-land whose 
bald ridges extend far westward into the plain, is 
Vespasian's Camp. This ancient stronghold, made 
by Britons and later occupied by the Roman con- 
querors, is hid among trees at the summit of a hill. 
They are all much alike, these Roman camps, — great 
rings girt with earth ramparts and dry moats. In the 
morning, before reaching Amesbury, we had at a dis- 
tance passed Ogbury Camp, on an eminence in the 
open moor. Archaeological remains so abound on 
Salisbury Plain that the tourist can but make selec- 
tions in the crowd of camps and barrows. 

There were several " toppers " in the last two miles 
to Stonehenge. Stiff climbs were not always rewarded 
by coasts down the other side, for the road had been 
newly metalled in places, and we had frequently to 
walk down over the mattress of sharp flints. 

Our first view of Stonehenge was from the summit 
of a steep down. With the columns of stone rising 
from a bare slope and capped by slabs, the effect a 



Wiltshire Downs and Salisbury Plain. 147 

mile distant was that of a bed of giant mushrooms. A 
quick dash down the hill, and then up a gentle in- 
cline, brought us to the turf road on the left, which 
straggles up the side of the plateau on which stands 
perhaps the greatest wonder of English archaeology- 

The aspect of Stonehenge is, I suppose, more fa- 
miliar to people of the English race the world over 
than any other historical monument in Great Britain. 
It all seems so natural, so like an old acquaintance, 
thaj; on first meeting it face to face one is apt to think 
it commonplace and disappointing. But in wander- 
ing about the ruins, and contemplating the weird 
surroundings, — the grassy plain undulating to the 
horizon, with ancient military earthworks and funeral 
barrows crowding each lovely eminence for miles 
around, white flocks dotting the green slopes, and 
solitary shepherds with smock and crook standing on 
hillocks outlined against the clear blue sky, — the 
beauty and sublimity of the scene come at last to win 
us, and for the time we long to delve deep in the 
sweets of antiquarian lore. 

We had had Stonehenge to ourselves for full half 
an hour, — the photograph man, fast asleep in a camp- 
chair, with his wares spread out on the "altar," is to 
be counted a fixture. Just 'as we had fairly risen to 
the proper mental altitude of true pilgrims, our musings 
were rudely broken in upon by the arrival of visitors. 
There were two or three carriage-loads of tourists from 
Salisbury, and among them some Americans, — you al- 
ways know them a quarter of a mile away, — also a half- 
dozen young pedestrians, hot and dusty; but the 
greater part of the crowd were Wessex folk of the 
rustic sort, — " 'Arries and 'Arriets " out for a holi- 



148 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

day. Most of the carriage tourists wandered list- 
lessly about, bought views, and fell victims to the 
wiles of an itinerant photographer, who had suddenly 
appeared with his " view van," and stood ready to 
" tek leddies an' gents in their own traps wi' ther pil- 
lars i' ther backgreound." The pedestrians, healthy 
English school-boys, in charge of a spectacled young 
tutor, lay flat on their stomachs on a neighboring- 
barrow and sketched the hoary ruins. The villagers 
tumbled boisterously from their two donkey-carts, 
turned the animals loose to graze upon the plain, and 
quite regardless of the solemnity of the scene, pro- 
duced hampers loaded with edibles and bottled beer, 
which the young women spread upon the ground, 
while their " fellers " worked up an appetite for lunch- 
in a hastily improvised cricket game. Stonehenge, 
thus profaned, at once lost its charm for us ; and once 
more in the saddle, we descended the turf road to the 
dusty highway. 

Halfway down we met an open carriage, but were 
too intent on our brakes to more than glance towards 
its occupants as we flitted by, until a lady's voice 
excitedly called us both by name. Promptly dis- 
mounting, somewhat startled by a recognition in the 
midst of Salisbury Plain, in a moment we were face to 
face with an old friend and former towns woman. She 
had landed at Southampton the day before, and was 
" doing " Europe with a party of Boston friends, to 
whom we were now introduced. It was a pleasant 
reunion, out there on the slope of Stonehenge, and 
quite unexpected, for neither party knew of the other's 
presence in England. To us, this thought of landing 
at Southampton yesterday, being at Stonehenge to- 



Wiltshire Downs and Salisbury Plain. 149 

day, and in London to-morrow, was a sharp reminder 
that we are doing our England right leisurely, and it 
behooves us to bestir ourselves. 

Returning to Amesburv, we sought the river- side 
road back to Salisbury. Wiltshire sign-posts are gen- 
erally fingerless, so far as our experience goes, — a 
fact which speaks eloquently of the wild storms which 
often prevail here in the winter season. On reaching 
the open country, a mile south of Amesbury, the bare 
posts at the parting of the ways gave no hint as to 
which of several rude wagon-tracks straggling up over 
an intervening chalk-down might be the path to 
Great Durnford, where we were to strike the lower 
road, We followed blindly to the summit, from 
which the tracks seem to diverge in many directions, 
finally deciding to follow one which is marked by 
little mounds of white chalk dumped alongside, a few 
rods apart, — reasoning that none but the road to the 
village would be thus carefully chalked out by the 
highway board. There must at times be wild nights 
up here on this naked moor, when Wessex folk caught 
out after dark search for these gleaming chalk-heaps 
as mariners do for familiar landmarks. 

Our judgment proved correct. The ruts in the 
turf soon broadened into a rough cart-track, down 
which we later bumped right merrily into a lovely 
ravine, in which were a cluster of quaint cottages, 
with yellow thatches decked with weeds, and bright 
flower-gardens coming down to their neatly trimmed 
hedges. A farm laborer, with his flat lunch-basket 
over one shoulder and a rude pitchfork over the other, 
was just entering a wicket as we approached, and 
paused to watch us. I dropped behind to talk with 



150 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

him, — to inquire the way is an easy method of break- 
ing the ice. 

The cottages were pretty, I said. "Ay, thet they 
be ! Prettier houtside than in ! " He knew best 
about that, so 1 did not venture to dispute this point. 

On a bench to one side of his cottage, were a half- 
dozen conical straw beehives, making a pleasant 
rustic picture, with an apple-tree bending gracefully 
over them, and a laurel bush in full bloom ; while 
hard by, roses clambered over a latticed well-house, 
and a mossy bucket rested invitingly on the curb. I 
said I was curious to know how they extracted honey 
from those old-fashioned hives. " They bean't hold- 
fashion, they, sir ! They be in fashion, sir ! " he pro- 
tested. "But how do you take out the honey?" I 
asked. "We teks the bees, sir!" This annual de- 
struction of the colonies, in order to get at their 
stores, is quite general here. I questioned him as to 
his knowledge of frame hives. He had heard of 
them, but " 'ad n't seen none, nor any one as 'ad used 
'em." It was an American notion, he had been told, 
" an' t' ol' way 's t' best, arter all, sir, for all their 
floighty Yankee gimcracks ! " 

Though a young man, this cottager proved dull, 
and the same question had sometimes to be worked 
over into several different forms before adaptable to 
his comprehension. Most of the working-men we have 
thus far conversed with over here are quite as intelli- 
gent as the same class in America, and have besides a 
larger stock of native politeness. 

Farther on in this secluded ravine, — a deep crack 
in the wild moorland, — we caught a glimpse to the 
right of the squire's " big house," well embowered in 



Wilts Jure Downs and Salisbury Plain. 151 

trees. Then passing under an arch of fine young 
beeches, we met another laborer, who informed us 
that on top of the steep ascent to the left, now thickly 
studded with beeches and maples, was Ogbury Camp. 
• The timber-growth was too dense for us to see this 
giant earth-ring of the Romans, but our informant 
declared that it was a mile in circuit. Perhaps our 
hollow road, now an enchanting botanical wilderness, 
was once a part of the great fosse. 

A sharp, rough descent, so crooked and narrow 
that we were forced to walk, brought us down into 
Great Durnford, — a score or two of picturesque cot- 
tages, chiefly thatched and timbered, with an old- 
fashioned inn, and two or three Liliputian shops. A 
large farmhouse flanks one side of the way, with 
generous barns to the rear. It is an isolated hamlet, 
thoroughly characteristic ; and from the manner in 
which we were stared at, apparently few tourists turn 
aside from the ridgeway to Stonehenge into this old- 
time river street. 

In the several little villages along our way, the 
masonry appears originally to have been a sort of 
pudding of mortar, chalk, and flints, It does not 
seem to be of lasting quality, for the greater part of 
the houses, barns, and high walls are rather shabby, 
and crumble easily. 

For the most of the way in from Great Durnford, the 
road is on a low river bench, steep hill-slopes of chalk 
by the left, and to the right the Avon, creeping in 
pretty curves down through luscious meadows. Now 
and then we dip through beech-hangers, and there are 
charming vistas, with smooth carpeted downs rising 
on the right, and the intervening valley. 



152 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

Halfway to Salisbury, set back in a broad meadow 
at a bend in the stream, is Heale House, where after 
the battle of Worcester (1651) Charles II. spent some 
days in rustic seclusion. It is a large gray, comfort- 
able, vine-clad farmhouse, with an aristocratic air. At 
the gate, a pretty maid- servant in a white cap was 
letting out a dog-cart in which, besides the liveried 
driver, were two or three fresh-looking young ladies 
under red parasols, who soon disappeared up the hill 
ahead of us. 

Later we passed another " big house," in a pretty 
garden by the roadside, and catching a view of the 
dairy around the corner, turned aside to purchase milk 
for lunch. The sun was close upon the horizon, and 
our appetite good. Seldom have we more enjoyed 
the animal pleasure of eating than over this modest 
sup and bite under a neighboring beech, whose 
arms, as we sat at its base, spread for us a giant 
canopy. We inspected the dairy after our meal ; 
it was a model of its kind; and the good woman 
in charge seemed pleased to receive our deserved 
commendations. 

As we entered Salisbury suburbs, through Stratford- 
under-the-Castle, at the foot of Old Sarum, our friend 
of the morning towered grandly against the evening 
sky. A stirring crowd of historic memories cluster 
about those gloomy ramparts ; we seem to be lifting 
our eyes to the ghost of Early Britain. 



^#^- 










CHAPTER VIII. 



IN THE NEW FOREST. 



T YNDHURST, Hants, Friday, June 12. After 
■f^ a busy morning at Salisbury Cathedral, we were 
off for the New Forest at one o'clock this afternoon. 
Our course lay through Downton, Brook, and Min- 
stead to Lyndhurst, — a distance of eighteen miles. 
There had been a sharp frost over night, cutting po- 
tatoes badly ; but the day was quite warm until half- 
past four in the afternoon, when a cool breeze set in 
from the south. 

The road out of Salisbury was hard and smooth, 
under arching trees, and at the tops of frequent hills 
we had pretty retrospective views of the red-roofed 
city and the long flat reaches of the Avon's meadows. 
A fellow-bicycler overtook us a mile from town, and 
accompanied us to Downton, some half-dozen miles 
farther on. He was a pleasant fellow and made good 
company, so that we were sorry when we had to part 
with him, his destination being Ringwood. 

We turn sharply east at Downton, which straggles 
along the zigzag road for a mile or so, with a far-away, 
eighteenth-century aspect. There are long lines of 



154 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

quaint, thatched houses on either side, and in the 
centre an old market cross that has lost its horizontal 
piece, — as indeed have most of them in England, — 
and now does duty as a public lamp-post. The east- 
ern end, near the railway station, — there is a charm- 
ing backward view of the old town, framed by the 
railway arch, — is newer, and bustles with corn- mills 
and iron-works. From here, a hard tug up a short 
but wofully steep hill brings us upon the ridge road 
stretching southeastward to Hampworth Common and 
No Man's Land, and thenceforth we have compara- 
tively clear sailing. We are now fairly in the New 
Forast, and on the highway which for a few miles 
serves as the boundary between Wiltshire on the left 
and Hampshire on the right, until at last it fully 
enters the latter county. 

Our climb called for a lunch, and at the brow of 
the down we applied at a small, neat farmhouse for 
our usual quantum of milk. A woman somewhat 
under middle-age, round-faced, pleasant-spoken, and 
simple, served us ; and upon her invitation we stacked 
machines by the hedge gate and spread our luncheon 
under a wide-spreading fir on the lawn within. Our 
hostess stayed by us to gossip, with an apology for do- 
ing so, — she said it was lonesome up here on the 
hill overlooking the village, and her men-folk were 
away threshing. It did not take long for her to learn 
that we were from America, — a bit of information 
calculated at once to loosen many rustic tongues that 
might otherwise remain mute. This interested her, 
for her sister, a school-mistress, had a farmer lover in 
Fulton County, Illinois, whom she was soon going out 
to marry. The good farmwife had doubts as to the 



In the New Forest. 155 

propriety of this proceeding ; but the sister and her 
prospective husband thought it a pity to inaugurate 
their joint career by squandering an amount upon 
his trip to and fro that might well be applied 
towards fitting up a home. W assured our en- 
tertainer that she deemed this quite proper thrift, 
especially as the young woman was first to visit a 
female friend in Fulton County, and be married 
at the latter's home. The mind of the good woman 
appeared easier, and she asked if this place in 
Illinois was near our home. " Not far," I replied. 
" Twenty mile or so ? " queried she. " Oh, bless 
you, no ! Two hundred and fifty ! " I explained 
that two hundred and fifty miles was relatively a 
short distance in a country so vast as America, but 
her open-mouthed wonder remained unabated. To 
her, Salisbury was far away ; her mind could not grasp 
a region so much larger than the New Forest. 

Here and there beyond this quiet Downton farm- 
stead are the small cottages of squatters and woods- 
men, — some of mud, but the most of them shaky 
wooden structures, half hid in clumps of firs, the 
rickety palings in front grown over with a tangle of 
shrubs and clambering vines, in which holly abounds. 
Lean, lank hogs wallow in roadside pools ; scrubby 
cows graze freely, watched by ragged boys, one of 
whom told us he had once been to Downton, but 
never saw Brook and knew not how far it was away ; 
the rude kitchen-gardens appear to have a hard time 
of it struggling against the spreading gorse, which 
here grows so rank as to threaten the existence of 
cultivated fields. 

The peasants of the New Forest are a hardy, in- 



156 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

dependent class, and generally very poor. Until the 
present century, if a man put up a little hut here, 
moved in his family, lit a fire, and began to cultivate 
ever so small a portion of the forest land, he could 
not be removed except by long and tedious process 
of law. Often the work of one moonlit night gave 
a right to the soil that was undisturbed for gen- 
erations. In early times such folk lived chiefly by 
poaching ; to-day they unite with this precarious pur- 
suit a meagre agriculture, and rival the gypsies as 
horse jockeys. 

For miles together, on Hampworth Common and 
in No Man's Land, we have from our ridge way wide 
views of undulating moorland, now and then lit up 
by acres square of the yellow blossom of the broom, 
by occasional sheets of wiry heather, and by great 
patches of stunted brown grass. Tier on tier of 
wooded ridges — pines, oaks, and beeches — darkly 
streak the wild expanse, like wave-crests on the sea. 
Sometimes, as far as the eye can reach from a com- 
manding hill-top, all is moor, decked in varied shades 
of brown and green'; again, the wrinkled downs are 
closely carpeted to the horizon's edge with interlock- 
ing trees. 

At times dense beech woods hem us closely on 
either side, and we have the prettiest vistas imagina- 
ble up and down the broad white road, which often 
shoots far away as straight as an arrow. In one 
of these dark avenues two camps of gypsies were 
planted by the way. We stopped at one of them. 
The party consisted of two men, two women, and 
seven or eight children, ranging from fifteen years of 
age down to an infant at breast. Those old enough 



In the New Forest. 157 

to work were squatted on the grass in front of their 
picturesque but shabby tents of saplings and canvas 
wagon-covers, engaged in the making of rude clothes- 
pins from a porous wood which they called " withey." 
I gave the leader a penny for a sample pin ; but he 
insisted on my taking six, the price being twopence a 
dozen, for " had n't I saved him the trouble of ped- 
dling that many in the village?" He spat on the 
coin before pocketing it, explaining that this was for 
good luck, it being the first money he had earned to- 
day. A tame young magpie, with its wings clipped, 
hopped cheerfully about the camp and played with 
the children. The bird also brought good luck, the 
gypsies said, and nearly every camp had one. I 
wonder if they ever heard of a mascot. 

On every side — about the only life we see, in 
long stretches of wilderness — are the stunted half- 
wild ponies of the New Forest. In groups or singly, 
they dot the hill-slopes everywhere, — frisky fellows, 
gray, white, black, and bay. Some, startled by our 
appearance, run before us on the road, in droves of a 
dozen ; others, nervously lifting their heads from amid 
the thorny furze, gallop off with clods of turf flying 
from their heels ; some quietly whinny to answering 
comrades on a neighboring eminence ; while many 
pay no attention as we pass, and, if mares, quietly 
suckle their foal. 

We are cycling over government land here, but 
there is no free pasturage for this roving stock. 
These ponies, herded and branded as are cattle on 
the western plains of America, are only permitted to 
graze, on payment by their owners of an annual fee 
to the government of two dollars and a half per head. 



158 Oar Cycling Tour in England. 

The branding and a peculiar clipping of the tail are 
obligatory marks of ownership, strictly enforced by 
the verderers. The animals may wander in unfenced 
tracts all the year round ; but the picking in winter is 
slight, and well-to-do farmers take their stock under 
shelter for home feeding. New Forest ponies are in 
large demand, chiefly in the London and Continental 
markets ; and one broken to the rough standard here 
prevailing, and in midsummer condition, is worth to 
the raiser some thirty or thirty-five dollars. Large 
horses would starve in this region of gorse and 
heather, and the ponies are not over-fed. New For- 
est is also noted for its hogs, which are quite different 
from the regular Hampshire breed, and have many 
of the characteristics of the wild boar. They are 
permitted to run at large in the forest only in acorn 
time, the government fee for the season being twelve 
cents per head. Within this wilderness asses and 
mules are likewise bred in considerable numbers. 

Brook — named from the rocky rivulet which 
flows through the place — is a charming little ham- 
let of half a dozen thatched houses of Elizabethan 
pattern, a public-house, a harness-shop, and a smithy, 
all ranged alongside of the village green. A party of 
ladies from Lyndhurst were taking photographs, while 
their coachman gossiped with the blooming bar-maid 
under the shadow of a monster beech. Brook is the 
centre of a more thickly settled district than on 
Hampworth Common. In its neighborhood we 
wheeled past several picturesque cottages, and on 
commanding hillocks caught glimpses of a few fine 
country-seats, with broad meadows, grazing cows of 
good quality, and cultivated fields, — pleasing pic- 



In the New Forest. 159 

tures, full of varied color and framed by the dark 
forest. 

Leaving the highway at Brook, a rough by-road 
leads over to Rufus Stone, a mile and a half south- 
ward. Passing through the irregular cluster of cot- 
tages known as Canterton, we came suddenly upon a 
small public-house set back from the road, which 
here degenerates into a woodland track. Rude 
benches of deal had been erected under the trees : 
and a rustic party of four — a man, two women, and 
a child — were regaling themselves there with bread 
and a tankard of beer, while their pony was hitched 
to a post at the tavern door. We were tired, even- 
ing, was at hand, these seemed honest sylvan folk, 
and the opportunity was good for lunch and gossip, 
— we never neglect such chances on this cycling trip 
of ours. 

The public bore no sign above its door save " Ann 
Golden," coupled with the faded legend that she 
kept a licensed house for food and drink. Ann dealt 
in milk as well as beer, and knew enough of tourists 
to charge me three prices for the jug of the former, 
which I took out to a bench to wash down Salisbury 
bread and Cheddar cheese. Our neighbors were 
soon chatting freely with us. The old man had a 
round, honest, weather-beaten face, and talked know- 
ingly of peasant farmer life in the New Forest, where 
he was born and had ever lived, with no care to go 
farther. His wife sat silently by. The lines in her 
sweet face were those of a contented disposition ; she 
nodded assent to every proposition of her lord, who 
was a sylvan philosopher, and, like most philosophers, 
quite aware that he knew a thing or two. Their 



160 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

daughter, rather showily dressed, was a bright-looking 
citified young woman of thirty, with a pretty little 
girl by her side. She lived in London, she proudly 
told us, and was only here on her annual visit; 
father's home was off by Castle Malwood, not far 
away. This was a picnic day to Rums Stone, for the 
sake of her child. 

" Father, he tells you he don't never want to move 
away from New Forest," she added, with an air of 
good-naturedly lecturing the old man over our shoul- 
ders ; " but I say New Forest is horrid and dismal in 
the winter, though it's pleasant enough for a little visit, 
like, in summer. But give me the city, I say, and the 
things that 's going on there ! You can't never get 
my man and I away from London, and don't you for- 
get it ! " Surely this daughter of the forest has been 
fully weaned from her childhood home. 

The father smiled knowingly as he drained the last 
drop from the tankard and rose to return it to Ann. 
"T' dorter she be stook, loike, on t' ol' teown; but 
fer me an' t' ol' 'ooman what knows noth'n' 'bout it, 
an' still hankers arter t' ol' trees an' t' fresh air loike, 
gi' us New Forest, say we ! Eh, Bess? " 

"Ay, thee 's roite, John!" and the old woman, 
smiling, patted him approvingly on the arm. 

" Gran'ma, she h'ain't never seen a Christmas 
pantomime ! " interposed little Jane ; and then all 
laughed gayly at the quaint puss. Thus we parted 
company, the best of friends. 

A hundred yards farther on. in a sequestered for- 
est opening surrounded by pretty bush-grown slopes, 
stands Rufus Stone. The original stone, " set up 
by John, Lord Delawar, who had seen the Tree 



In the New Forest. 161 

growing in this Place," has been replaced by a tri- 
angular iron post about five feet high, bearing this 
inscription : — 

Here stood the Oak-Tree, on which an Arrow, shot by Sir 
Walter Tyrrell at a Stag, glanced, and struck King 
William II. surnamed Rufus, on the Breast, of which 
he instantly died, on the Second Day of August, anno noo. 

As we stood in front of this modest monument 
commemorating an event that proved to be of the 
most vital importance to the entire English race, 
there came out to us, from a hut in the heavy beech 
wood opposite, a tall, jaunty-looking man in brown 
corduroy, wearing a soft felt hat, picturesquely slouched 
and with a bit of feather in it, — a sort of Robin 
Hood merryfellow, who might be brigand or game- 
keeper, according to circumstances. I was looking 
for an adventure — perhaps an arrest for trespass, or 
the collection of a toll — at the hands of this oper- 
atic woodsman, when he drew from his bosom a 
package wrapped in a greasy newspaper, and sol- 
emnly unrolling it, spread a half-dozen photographs 
on the top of the pillar. One could hardly anticipate 
meeting a photograph pedler in one of the loneliest 
corners of the New Forest, but it is the unexpected 
that is always happening. As we seemed slow to buy, 
he declared sadly that business was dull, and for a 
shilling he would give us a picture worth one-and- 
three-pence. There was no resisting his persistence, 
and we yielded to the inevitable as gracefully as might 
be. Thus he proved a sort of brigand, after all. 

It is a pity to take the poetry out of Rufus Stone, 
and thus to injure the business of honest Ann Golden 
and the artistic forester, but really the truth must 



1 62 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

be written. The circumstances attending the death 
of Rufus are not fully known ; the earliest historians 
differ both as to the manner of his being killed and 
the place of the tragedy, while several of those who 
vouchsafe many other particulars make no mention 
of a tree playing a part in the tragedy. But the 
knowing Lord Delaware, who first planted Rufus 
Stone in 1745, "had seen the Tree growing," so 
perhaps it were best to say no more. 

Before leaving Rufus Stone, we were witnesses of a 
lively spectacle of pony-breaking. Two young rustics 
appeared, each leading or rather dragging a yearling 
by a long rope fastened about its neck. Behind them 
came a stouter yokel on a big horse, lashing the 
frightened colts with a great stock-whip. At his heels 
a parcel of harum-scarum youngsters followed, pelting 
the victims with sticks and clumps of turf. The trick 
seemed to be to rush the animals up and down a slope, 
the pack of humans the while pursuing them with in- 
genious torture. Now and then a plunging beast 
would drag his captor off his feet and prance about 
like mad, with a sprawling yokel at the end of the 
line ; but the thick-skinned forester would finally fetch 
up in a brush and regain his footing. Meanwhile, — 
the air rent with alternating yells of laughter and im- 
precation, — the ribs of the wild-eyed, snorting cap- 
tives were belabored with strokes and pelting, as 
they frothed at mouth, and vainly reared and kicked 
and stumbled. 

A truce was now and then declared, while both 
sides, hot and panting, sought rest for renewed effort. 
In such a pause I talked with these peasants, who 
seemed innocent fellows enough, although no doubt 



/;/ the New Forest. 163 

merciless fiends in the eyes of the poor tormented. 
They said this species of breaking, persisted in for a 
few evenings, was sufficient to crush the spirit of the 
wildest pony, and I should think it well might. An 
animal which has once been through this nightmare 
might as well give up for life and be done with it. As 
we spoke, one of the colts, that had been sitting on 
his haunches at bay, gave a sudden spring into the air 
with a fierce cry, and dashed off, dragging the 
astonished line- man face downwards over the heather. 
Bedlam was again in full tilt as we regained our 
saddles. 

Castle Malvvood is not far away. It was at Malwood 
where Rufus lodged when a monk is said to have 
warned him of his approaching death ; but an ancient 
intrenchment is now all that remains of the once 
royal seat. From there we went on over the woodland 
road, to the sweet little long-drawn-out village of 
Minstead. After that a broad highway, lined with the 
tall black poles of the postal telegraph, led right into 
Lyndhurst, the village capital of the New Forest. 
There were fine runs through beautiful woods and 
past numerous fine estates ; now and then a residence 
grand enough for a ducal seat could be seen perched 
on a lofty hillside a mile or two back. 

We were at The Crown in Lyndhurst by seven 
o'clock, — a quiet, homelike inn, but rather more 
after the fashion of smaller Adirondack hotels than 
any we have yet seen over here. There was table 
d'hote, too, and Americans who had come by train. 
There are many quaint bits in the streets and alleys, 
but the general impression is newish for an English 
village, for there are numerous smart, red-brick build- 



164 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

ings, and everywhere is evident a desire to brush up for 
the tourist trade. 

I fancy that Americans in general think of New 
Forest as a gigantic wood. There are, however, vil- 
lages, broad estates, and open moors scattered through 
it. According to old English usage, — and indeed in 
legal phraseology still, — the term " forest " designates, 
not a mass of trees, but any place of resort and shelter 
for animals which may be pursued and slaughtered for 
royal amusement. It was only in a secondary sense 
that the word came in modern times popularly to be 
applied to the trees alone, as the chief characteristic 
of such a place. When forest land had been granted 
to a subject, with the injunction that it was to remain 
unenclosed, it became a "chase." A "park" was 
likewise a royal grant containing beasts, and might be 
enclosed. A "warren" was a franchise from the 
king " for the keeping of beasts, . . . hares, coneys, 
partridges, and pheasants." Woods might belong 
either to sovereign or subject ; hence, as a forest can 
belong only to the king, we may have forests without 
woods, and woods that are not forests. 

The Conqueror is said to have had sixty-eight 
forests, thirteen chases, and seven hundred and eighty 
parks in different parts of England. The name New 
Forest arose from the fact that he greatly enlarged 
this particular tract by taking in neighborhood dis- 
tricts of woodland, and subjecting them to forest law. 

New Forest has had a checkered history. With 
the Stuarts came decay and ill-luck to this as well as 
to other royal hunting-grounds. Charles I. granted 
the region as security to his creditors ; and as he 
could not pay the keepers' wages, he allowed them to 



/;/ the New Forest. i6$ 

cut timber instead. Charles II., possibly influenced 
by the publication of Evelyn's " Silva," saw the im- 
portance of preserving the forest for ship-timber, and 
had a few hundred acres planted to young oaks ; at 
the same time he gave away three of the woodlands 
to a maid of honor at his court. About this time, 
also, occurred the great hurricane described and 
deplored by Evelyn, which rooted up some four 
thousand of the finest old oaks. George III., who 
despised hunting, and had no eye to the wild beauties 
of the region, called it "a dreary waste." In 1S51 
the commissioners of woods cut down extensive tracts 
of the finest trees in order to plant dismal Scotch firs. 

Stoden Ridge, on which alone they destroyed three 
hundred ancient yews, was said to have been the finest 
example of the natural forest to be seen in England in 
the middle of the present century ; the largest of hollies 
and white beam were growing there, with here and 
there an ancient birch or hawthorn. Nowhere else were 
the trees so large, uniform, and grand in their stately 
growth of ages. Only eleven years ago (1880), 
another beautiful portion of New Forest was sacri- 
ficed in a similar manner : a fine beech wood was 
slaughtered, and the timber sold ; a lovely stream that 
wound gracefully through the wood was straightened, 
and the surface roundabout planted to young firs, 
mechanically set in long straight lines, producing a 
melancholy and depressing effect. 

Despite this cruel slashing, there is still left some 
fine forest scenery, where great trees stand sufficiently 
alone to show their complete form and perfect growth ; 
we have had some of it to-day, and will have more 
to-morrow. As the ancient capital of the district, 



1 66 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

around which are gathered many traditions of New 
Forest history, and also as the centre of one of its 
choicest parts, Lyndhurst is each summer haunted by 
tourists. Beaulieu (pronounced Bewly) Abbey, Net- 
ley Abbey, and Hurst Castle, all of them famous his- 
toric buildings, are not far away in the forest ; but its 
chief distinction lies in its rural beauty, and the rare 
blending of heather, lawns, and woodland. 

There are, however, other charms : old-time relics 
abound ; its fine old trees are now rare treasures in 
England ; there are here numerous traces of pre- 
historic man ; in its shades may, it is said, be heard 
the note of almost every variety of English bird ; the 
forest has always been noted for deer ; I have al- 
ready written of the wild ponies and hogs of to-day, 
and no doubt, judging from the fossils of tropical 
plants and animals found in great profusion, there was 
a time when herds of elephants pastured in this forest ; 
the tiger may have lurked in the deep jungles ; and 
over its heather-clad slopes the elk and the bison 
probably once ranged at will. England has had a 
strange history since these fossilized bones were laid 
to rest in the New Forest. 

Christchurch, Hants, Saturday, 13th. In Lynd- 
hurst this morning the chief attraction proved to be 
the Queen's House, in one end of which is the Ver- 
derers' Hall. This rather insignificant royal residence, 
now occupied by the ranger, dates from the time of 
Charles II., and is supposed to have succeeded Castle 
Malwood as the seat of sylvan justice. Here Charles 
frequently kept his court, as did also George III. 
The house itself, of red-brick walls thick-clad with 
ivy, does not have the external appearance of being 



In the New Forest. 167 

over a century old ; but within, the projecting oak 
beams, blackened with age, and the quaint furniture 
and appointments, at once bespeak antiquity. 

Within the Verderers' Hall are displayed many curi- 
ous relics of forest customs. Here offenders against 
the laws of the forest were tried and sentenced. The 
inhabitants of royal forests were from early times ruled 
by special statutes of exceptional severity, designed 
to prevent poaching. It was, however, not until the 
reign of Henry I. that the forest code reached its 
maximum of cruelty. Under John, affairs were still 
at such a pass that it was considered " safer to be a 
beast than a Christian man." 

It is impossible to say just when the elaborate for- 
est laws ceased to be, with their cruel penalties, 
grievances almost insufferable, and in a mitigated 
form became only occasional nuisances. Among the 
many abuses credited to the unfortunate Charles I. 
was a sharp but brief revival of the then latent forest 
code, in order to obtain money without the aid of 
Parliament. That the spirit of the old jurisprudence 
lingered until the present century in the game laws 
of England is shown by Harriet Martineau, who in 
1846 vigorously protested against the harshness used 
towards those poachers who were renters of small 
farmsteads near the great preserves, and on whose 
grain and vetches the hares and pheasants freely 
and often disastrously fed. 

Of the hundred and forty square miles embraced 
in the New Forest at least one third is in private 
hands. The Queen is nominally the lady of the 
manor, and the Queen's House in Lyndhurst is styled 
a royal residence ; but the legal bounds of the crown 



1 68 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

land are veiled in obscurity, and Parliament has 
taken all rights from her save that of keeping certain 
portions enclosed until young or newly planted trees 
are past danger from browsing. The only cutting 
now done is on a few tracts of pollarded growth and 
in thinning out old plantations ; portable saw-mills 
work up the largest trunks into transportable timber, 
and the bark is carefully saved for sale to tanneries. 

There was a long list of forest officers, in the good 
old times when a hungry man might be hanged for 
looking covetously on a deer : lord wardens, regard- 
ers, rangers, stewards, agistors, verderers, keepers, 
surveyors, woodwards, and riding foresters, — half of 
them titles that none but an antiquary can now tell 
the meaning of, so far are we removed from those 
halcyon days, although the chief among these offices 
remained as sinecures or " royal boons " long after 
there ceased to be any duties attaching to them. 

The New Forest verderers were the magistrates 
of the forest courts of Swanimote, Attachment, and 
Regard. At the Swanimote, officers were enrolled 
and inquiries made into charges of grievance and 
oppression on their part ; the Court of Attachment 
tried offences committed against and in the forest, 
with the power to attach the goods of culprits when 
they themselves could not be found ; and the Court of 
Regard looked after homesteaders' dogs which were 
so mutilated in the feet that they could not track 
deer. Of all these ancient dignities only the Swani- 
mote survives to-day in Verderers' Hall ; and its chief 
business is the peaceful one of granting shooting, 
inn, and pasturage licenses, and collecting dues for 
the repair of roads. The verderers had held court 



In the New Forest, 169 

in the hall last Wednesday, with the same benches, 
tables, and chairs as were in use in this room hun- 
dreds of years ago ; and the official notices tacked on 
the walls were couched in the quaint phraseology of 
our far-away ancestors. 

At a quarter past eleven we were on the road 
again, for a roundabout course of thirty-three miles 
to Christchurch, by way of Bolderwood Lodge, 
Brockenhurst, and Lymington. The day has been 
the hottest we have yet experienced in our tour ; and 
the road out to Bolderwood — seven miles — is up 
hill and down, white as a chalk-line, and dusty. In 
the open moors the heat and dust were sometimes 
stifling ; and for the occasional shaded avenues, where, 
under noble oaks, beeches, and firs we would stop 
for rest and a fresh breath, we were indeed grateful. 

For the greater part of the way the underbrush — 
chiefly holly and may — is very thick ; but where the 
trees are exceptionally large and wide-spreading, with 
dense foliage, the ground is as bare of shrubbery as 
in an American pine forest. The great trunks and 
branches frequently hang with ragged festoons of gray 
moss, giving them a delightfully venerable appear- 
ance, and the ground is deep and soft also with 
moss, although beneath dry and parched from the 
drought which has been prevalent here this summer. 
Once or twice we crossed a meagre streamlet, with 
bitter water. New Forest is notable for its almost 
total lack of water, — a considerable drawback to the 
beauty of its landscapes. 

Swan Green, just out of Lyndhurst, is one of the 
most charmingly situated hamlets in the district, but 
it is quite small ; around the green, which is well cov- 



170 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

ered with bare trunks, — the local timber-yard, — are 
two smithies and a few heavily thatched cottages. A 
forester's hut is set here and there by the roadside, 
and, miles apart, the hunting-lodge of some man of 
wealth, but otherwise we see few human habitations, 
and there are not many ponies along the way. Our 
path is a lonely one, and we are the better able to 
appreciate the forest. 

Bolderwood is a great woodland estate covering 
several square miles, all carefully set about with close 
palings, over which the protruding limbs of fir-trees 
almost sweep the ground. We had followed these 
for a mile or two, vainly seeking an opening through, 
when, at the corner of the tight fence, the highway 
debouched upon a bare common, where cows were 
grazing ; and the road suddenly split into several 
paths, coursing off at widely separated angles over 
the open reaches of Bratley Plain. 

Meeting a laborer, we were set right for Bolder- 
wood gate, at no great distance under the trees, and 
given our bearings for Burley Lodge and Brocken- 
hurst ; the ordnance map is not sufficiently clear as 
to these private roads. At the keeper's lodge, a small 
brick house a hundred yards within the park, we ob- 
tained a jug of milk, and thoroughly enjoyed our lunch 
in a shady nook near by. The famous " King " and 
"Queen" oaks, back of the lodge, are visited an- 
nually by thousands of tourists, and well deserve the 
homage paid them as ancient monarchs of the forest. 

The road to Burley, through Bolderwood estate, is 
rather rough for bicycling. For long stretches the 
sand is deep ; frequently we found the way newly 
mended, and ever and anon it degenerates into a 



In the New Forest. 171 

mere cartpath. For miles together our wheels were 
in deep ruts, and the exercise of thus riding was 
rather tiring to the nerves. Tricycles could hardly 
have ventured here. It was a relief to have, every 
few miles, to get off and open a gate which barred 
our passage. 

At Burley Lodge, where there are nothing more 
than a few keepers' cottages, we proceeded up a long 
sandy road, lined with rhododendrons and laburnums, 
into Mark Ash Wood, in which are some of the 
grandest trees in the region. Enormous trunks are 
met at every turn, and each new vista through the 
arching columns of the lonely forest seems more 
bewitching than the last. What sanctuaries these, for 
primitive worship ! For the first time in our lives we 
appreciate the full strength and beauty of Bryant's 
" Forest Hymn," — 

" The groves were God's first temples." 

Three miles from Brockenhurst is a long, level 
stretch of old fir plantation, through which has been 
cut a broad avenue, like an extended cathedral nave 
hedged in with natural columns, and feathery 
branches arching overhead. To one side a keeper's 
cottage, with a garden of flowers and vegetables to 
front and rear, — a cheerful splash of color in this 
wilderness of shade. The man, his wife, and two 
bright children came out to the palings to see us, 
and we stopped to chat with them and drink from 
their deep, cool well behind the house. The little 
homestead, with its yellow thatch, the clambering 
roses in full bloom running up the walls, the varie- 
gated garden-patch, and the noble avenue converging 



\J2 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

either way as straight as a die to far- distant points, 
formed a most charming picture of isolated forest 
life. We longed to settle down here for a day or 
two, to drink it all in, and took counsel together at 
the well-curb whether or not we should ask to be 
taken in. But our resolution, adopted at the outset, 
to linger nowhere beyond the stipulated time, was 
staring us in the face, and we hurried on out of 
temptation. 

Soon our road emerged upon a gorse- covered 
moor with but occasional clumps of trees. Private 
estates began to appear, many of them with fine 
houses. A good down-grade brought us at last into 
Brockenhurst, — a rather smart and newish village on 
the river Lymington, which here sprawls through a 
dip in the sandy highway, and is fordable for car- 
riages. We crossed over a shaky wooden foot- 
bridge, and ascending through the town, up past the 
old Saxon church and the green glades of Brocken- 
hurst Park, took the broad white highway to the sea- 
port of Lymington, seven miles away. To our right 
wooded downs dimpled the face of the country, and 
below us, to the left, spread expansive meadows by 
the river's side. Rural mansions were numerous, and 
blooded cattle grazing in rich pastures gave evidence 
of much wealth concentrated in these country-seats. 

We only skim through the outskirts of Lymington, 
celebrated for its yacht building yards, and a point 
of departure for the Isle of Wight. The shallow har- 
bor is filled with shipping of the smaller sort, and 
there is a dry, intensely practical aspect to the place. 
Our road leads sharply to the right, a mile or two 
back from the coast. A cool breeze has sprung up, 



hi the New Forest. 173 

as the evening creeps on apace. The glaring country 
street is carpeted with pulverized macadam, which 
has whitened the dense hedges on either side ; and 
miles ahead of us moving columns of dust tell of the 
passage of flocks and carts. 

It is not an attractive way, — this dusty passage over 
the flats of Christchurch Bay, after two days in the 
romantic shades of the New Forest. Through gaps 
in the high hedges we catch glimpses of meadows on 
either side, with an occasional low ridge. Far away 
to the left, over intervening sea, the lofty dark-blue 
downs of the Isle of Wight — with chalk- roads over 
which we lately walked, and gleaming parallel lines of 
landslips, sharply accentuated — are outlined against 
the southern sky. Northward lies the dark, low mass 
of the New Forest, with jagged openings here and 
there, in which are set green fields, cattle browsing, 
and the pleasant rural homes of the aristocracy. 

As the last light is fading from the long day, we 
enter Christchurch town. Wheeling through a crowd 
of Saturday- night idlers on the beautiful old stone 
bridge over the Avon, and past Norman castle ruins 
and a beautiful priory church, we are soon at our inn, 
right glad to be well housed at the close of a toil- 
some week. 




CHAPTER IX. 

ACROSS DORSET. 

/^HRISTCHURCH, Hants, Sunday, June 14. 
^■^ This ancient seaport was named from its large 
and interesting Norman priory church, " consecrated 
to the Saviour Christ." But while the oldest parts of 
the edifice now in view were built in the time of 
William Rufus, the foundations are of early Saxon 
origin, far older than the earliest records of the 
priory. The town itself was certainly Roman, and 
probably British. 

Situated on a pleasant ridge, washed on either side 
by the Avon and the Stour, to the south lie long 
reaches of peaceful tidal meadows, in which the two 
rivers unite and flow into the sea at Christchurch Bay. 
Small fishing-smacks come in with the tide to just be- 
low the Avon bridge ; but a thicket of masts, a mile 
or two off across the salt flats, shows where those of 
deeper draught are anchored. 

The service in the fine old church this morning 
did not accord with the quaint beauty of its Norman 
and Early English architecture. It was a ceremony 



Across Dorset. 175 

devoid of life and warmth ; a Chinese prayer- machine 
could not be more mechanical. But there was an 
element of unconscious humor about the sermon 
which kept us awake. The preacher was a mission- 
ary rector from the Canadian Northwest. This was 
his thesis : During the construction of the Tower 
of Babel the Lord brought about the confusion of 
tongues to harass men for their wickedness ; but 
there is an implied promise in Scripture that in due 
time the peoples of the earth shall be reunited, — 
presumably with one language. Now, statistics prove 
that the English is fast gaining ground as the common 
language of Christendom ; at the present ratio it will 
not be long relatively before it is literally the one 
language of the world. This granted, then, England, 
which is the cradle and centre of the English-speak- 
ing race, is in due course to be the dominant nation 
of the world, — the one nation of the world. Now, 
as the Church of England is by divine ordination the 
one true Church of Englishmen, it is plain that she 
is the fold into which all mankind, forgetting dif- 
ferences of every sort, will at last be gathered. 
" Then, my beloved, how great the responsibility 
which rests upon us to-day, as the appointed guar- 
dians of the Divine Will ! Let us put the House of 
God in order that the end which He seeketh may be 
the sooner reached ! Let us forward His designs by 
extending our domain, and setting up avenues of 
approach to the oneness of God's people, to the 
universality of His anointed Church ! " And then 
the climax, — an appeal for aid in the work of bring- 
ing the people of Manitoba into the Anglican com- 
munion ! All of which was very ingenious, — I think 



176 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

honestly so, on this missionary's part, — and gave us 
much quiet amusement. 

After service we walked about the church. The 
choir is separated from the nave by a Perpendicular 
screen, — a fine piece of work of 1502. The nave, 
southwest aisle, and north transept still show some 
Norman work, with zigzag moulding, diamond net- 
work, chevrons, and other figures. In the chancel 
the ancient and curiously carved stalls for the canons 
remain for our admiration. A battlemented square 
tower of the fifteenth century rises at the west end ; 
the clerestory is lofty ; and a remarkable north porch 
of the fourteenth century is worthy of interest. 
Among the many sepulchral memorials, that which 
interested us most was to the poet Shelley, whose 
ashes lie in far-off Rome. Says Rabbe, in his 
" Shelley : The Man and the Poet " : — 

" This monument by Weeks, erected by filial piety in 
the shadow of a country church, to Shelley and Mary, 
awaits the hour when England shall atone for her ingrati- 
tude by placing it in Westminster Abbey by the side of 
the effigies of Milton, Spenser, and Shakespeare." 

Lingering in the sombre shades of these storied 
walls until at last the jingle of the sexton's keys 
warned us that visitors must withdraw, we went out 
by the north porch, and there stumbled upon an in- 
teresting scene. It was the distribution of fifty-two 
loaves of bread to as many poor widows. Upon the 
basis of an ancient endowment this dole is meted 
out upon the second Sunday in each month, " and 
oftener if the weather be cold." The verger, se- 
verely dignified in his ecclesiastical gown, stood with 



Across Dorset. 177 

a tablet and pencil, and in the tone of an auctioneer 
called off in order the names of the beneficiaries, — 
"The Widow Cox!" " The Widow Lisle!" and so 
on through the list. 

It was an eager crowd of faded women, old and 
young, which stood before this official dispenser of the 
staff" of life, — in limp black bonnets, which showed 
traces of a dozen years of careful mending ; in 
curious white caps, stiff with starch ; in cheap plaid 
shawls with many a darn, and threadbare gowns of 
varied length and hue. There were the rotund, red- 
cheeked, self-satisfied, frowzy women, who stood with 
arms akimbo, and clearly looked upon this public 
receipt of alms at the church door as an amusing 
episode in life ; there too were the lean, the haggard, 
the garrulous, with chin and nose fast meeting, their 
frail frames doubled over sticks and crutches, and 
snatching the dole with feverish eagerness ; also the 
timid, shrinking lot, whose downcast eyes showed 
that to this parade of destitution nothing but sheer 
want had driven them. A singular assemblage this, 
of types for the cartoonist. 

A warden, one of the little company of specta- 
tors within the porch, told me that there was a 
special loaf-giving at Christmas. He considered the 
monthly dole beneficial, because those who applied 
were in general needy ; but that at Christmas-tide 
was more subject to abuse, and had a pauper-making 
tendency. 

The exterior of this church of Norman times, 
which presents traces of every century since, is strik- 
ing and dignified. A Norman turret, with arched 
panels and rope-work, is exceptionally fine ; we have 



178 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

nowhere else seen anything like it. There are still 
in the grounds about some remains of the secular 
and conventual buildings of the ancient priory ; in an 
adjoining field are vestiges of fish-ponds ; a meadow 
hard by is still styled the "convent garden; " and a 
walk, now used for recreation by the scholars of the 
church school, is to this day called " Paradise," and 
doubtless was once a monkish ambulatory. The 
Avon flows at the bottom of the priory grounds ; and 
in the protecting wall can still be seen outlines of a 
door through which the monks drew water from the 
peaceful stream. 

Near by the churchyard are the ruins of a castle 
built here, some chroniclers say by Redvers, — a baron 
much favored and enriched by Henry I. Redvers 
walled the town in and held fierce sway for many 
years. Portions of the thick shell of his keep still 
remain on the summit of an artificial mound ; while 
below, and so situated by the Avon's bank that its 
inmates could haul up water from the river, are the 
remains of a stout stone hall, — locally called " Con- 
stable House," — now roofless and grown to ivy. 
This was possibly the baronial state apartment. It is 
loopholed for firing at close range, and in many 
ways speaks eloquently of those bloody times which 
it is our good fortune not to have been born in, when 
every man's hand was against his neighbor, and an 
Englishman's house must needs be a castle if he pro- 
posed to enjoy an independent existence. 

Dorchester, Dorset, Monday, \$th. We were 
off from Christchurch this morning at ten o'clock. 
Following the Bournemouth highway westward for a 
mile and a half, we left it at the crossing of the Stour, 



Across Dorset. 179 

and took the angling by-road leading northwestward 
to Wimborne Minster, twelve miles distant. 

The country is, with exceptions, fertile and highly 
cultivated. To our right, all the way, lie the 
meadows of the sluggish Stour. As we ascend the 
pleasant vale, we often come closely down to the 
water's brink, which is overhung with grasses and 
willows ; but in general our path is along the undulat- 
ing rim of the basin, threading the upland hedge- 
rows. While passing easily over the lower swells, we 
have often to dismount and trudge up hills which it 
is not worth the effort to attempt to climb while still 
in the saddle. 

Much may be done on our machines that we do 
not do, in the way of cycling gymnastics ; but we 
are not professionals, neither are we breaking amateur 
records. We are out to see rural England by the 
best possible conveyance, and are taking our time at 
it. It is not at all times an easy conveyance to-day : 
this by-road to Wimborne is sandy and dusty, and for 
long stretches much cut up by the sharp hoofs of 
sheep, for thousands of them pass over it daily in 
changing pastures, so that the wheeling is not as good 
as on the great highways which we generally follow. 
It would not be well, however, to have our passage 
all plain sailing ; there would be no variety in it. 
One is the better prepared to be joyful over a good 
street when he has had an indifferent one to travel. 
Besides, the worst here are magnificent compared 
with the average American country road ; one is apt 
to get spoiled by these luxurious English turnpikes. 

The little villages along our path present charming 
pictures of rural life, — Holdenhurst, Throop, Ems- 



i8o Our Cycling Tour in England. 

bury Green (near which we cross the border into 
Dorset), Red Hill, Kinson, Knighton, Canford 
Magna, characteristic south-country names, with an 
oldtime flavor about them. Red Hill is delightfully 
picturesque. We also fell quite in love with Kinson, 
where half the cottages in the double row flanking 
the one prolonged street are heavily thatched and 
numerously dormered. Canford Magna is on the 
broad and beautiful estate of Lord Wimbome. The 
village is a marvel of neatness and scenic effects; 
each cottage has its graceful rustic porch, and the 
gardens of tulips and wall- flowers give it a setting 
of exceeding grace. While the general aspect is one 
of studied quaintness, there are many new and model 
blocks of red-brick cottages, with my lord's arms 
neatly engraven over each doorway. Hard by is the 
great white mansion, whose occupants doubtless take 
great pride in preserving this hamlet of their working- 
folk as a thing of beauty. It is, however, rather too 
consciously artistic : it has a set, stagey appearance, 
an air of sitting for its picture ; one fears that should 
a child with a soiled apron appear on the street my 
lord's landscape-gardener would call out the police. 
It was twelve o'clock when we arrived at Wim- 
bome Minster (twenty-five hundred inhabitants). 
The noon bells were pealing in the great lantern 
tower of the venerable collegiate church, and the 
streets were filled with working people hastening 
homeward from the woollen and hosiery factories 
which appear to constitute the chief industries of 
the place. It is a hard, unattractive town, though 
beautifully situated in one of the loveliest vales in 
England, and has fallen sadly from its ancient state. 



Across Dorset. 181 

There are marks here of Roman splendor ; in Saxon 
times it was a well- fortified and important place, the 
scene of numerous struggles between Eadward the 
Elder and Ethelwald. Its Saxon nunnery was one of 
the earliest on the island ; Ethelwald took his wife 
from its walls. The Danes destroyed the sacred 
house ; and Edward the Confessor converted it into 
a college of secular canons. 

The church of this old nunnery of the eighth cen- 
tury is the principal attraction. We found it near 
the centre of the town, closely hemmed in with busi- 
ness buildings. Chaining our machines in a foot- 
path running alongside the churchyard, we entered 
through the iron gateway, and in the porch were met 
smilingly by a young verger whose chief care was to 
show us the interior restorations now in progress. 
These appear to be overdone, but perhaps it is unfair 
to judge of the effect until complete. Restoration is 
quite the fad over here, in churches high and low, 
big and little. It is seldom you can go inside of an 
English church and not find staring at you near the 
entrance a placard inviting — and sometimes pite- 
ously imploring — " Offerings for the Restoration 
Fund." 

There is a curious mixture in this hoary pile of the 
Saxon and Gothic orders of architecture, — I know 
Freeman carefully explains that there is no such thing 
as Gothic architecture, but we have come almost uni- 
versally to adopt the term, and it is a convenient 
adjective for a style fairly well defined. The form and 
general aspect is Saxon, yet there have been notable 
additions in the Norman, Early English, and Perpen- 
dicular methods, and thus the church is an interest- 



1 82 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

ing study in architectural transitions. It would be 
well if it were better known to our country people. 

An old Saxon chest hewn out of a solid log, like 
the " dug-out " canoe of the American Indian, is an 
interesting relic here. It has six locks, and until 
quite recent times the church deeds and other valua- 
ble papers were kept within it ; each vestryman had 
a key, and all were obliged to be present and start 
the bolts before it could be opened. Several other 
strong boxes, of the Norman and Plantagenet eras, 
are also exhibited, each of them having numerous 
locks with different keys, which were held by various 
church officers. Relics these, of the days ■ — not so 
far departed from us — when no man counted his 
neighbor honest, even in the administration of the 
church ; of the days when men bartering in the 
market-place had each to clutch the other's goods 
before agreeing to release his own. 

We saw also the brass effigy of King ^Ethelred the 
Unready, who lies buried in the sanctuary. If his 
Wessex Majesty looked at all like this alleged por- 
trait, he must have been a most melancholy gentle- 
man. But more interesting to us than yEthelred's 
tomb was the chained library, to which we climbed, 
up a dark, narrow flight of spiral stairs. In a tower 
chamber a dozen feet square, and badly lighted, is this 
library of two hundred and forty volumes, established 
in 1686 for the free use of the townsfolk by a gentle- 
man named Stone. The books — ponderous tomes, 
mainly theological — are bound in pig- skin, and 
carefully chained to rings sliding freely on horizontal 
iron rods; a light portable reading-desk is so ar- 
ranged that it can be easily moved from place to 



Across Dorset. 183 

place wherever needed. Stone wished the people to 
read his books, but he did not want them carried 
away. Nobody could be trusted in his day and gen- 
eration, hence the chains. It is said that when this 
now probably unique library was opened, it was found 
that few in the parish had mastered the first of the 
R's ; the more gifted of the community were kept busy 
reading to their friends, who would, under certain 
rules of precedence, assemble in groups within the 
chamber. In a glass case in the centre of the room 
are a dozen or so rarities. The most notable are a 
vellum manuscript of 1384, a Breeches Bible, and an 
early edition of Burton's " Anatomy of Melancholy." 
1 We lunched under a broad-spreading oak, over- 
hanging the Stour at the bridge beyond Wimborne 
Minster. The broad green meadows roundabout 
were sprinkled with buttercups and daisies, and 
groups of cattle were resting under the tree-clumps, 
serenely chewing their noonday cud. 

Leaving the Stour valley at Corfe Mullen, a few 
miles beyond, our path now lay over a succession of 
water-sheds to Dorchester by the way of Bere Re- 
gis, an afternoon run of twenty miles. Picturesque 
hamlets are Winterborne Zelstone and Winterborne 
Thompson, but Bere Regis is full of the savor of an- 
tiquity. There are few new dwellings here ; pretty 
much everything is as it might have been two or 
three centuries ago. It is a village where one could 
profitably study in detail the simplest types of the 
cottage class. 

On the river Puddle {alias Trent), whose valley 
we now ascend for an hour or two, are numerous lit- 
tle villages worthy of prettier names, — Turner's 



184 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

Puddle, Bryan's Puddle, Affpuddle, Tolpuddle, Pud- 
dletown, Puddlehinton, and Puddletrenthide. We 
passed through the most of them, and sign-boards 
pointed the way to others. It is plain that these 
names originated in early times by way of distinguish- 
ing the several settlements on the Puddle, and our 
map shows frequent cases of a similar fashion in 
neighborhood nomenclature ; but seldom is the result 
more grotesque than in this smiling vale. 

The country grows more rugged as we progress. 
From the ridges and the breezy hill-tops we have wide 
views afield. The tones and lights are agreeably 
varied ; each hue and line is startlingly vivid in this 
clear atmosphere, — the deep-green meadows dotted 
dark with browsing herds, and yellow and white with 
flowers ; swelling downs gracefully capped with belts 
of fir ; abrupt hillsides with lusty beech-hangers ; 
slopes of moorland patched with dark, forbidding 
gorse ; fields of grain flashing in the sunlight ; and, 
often framing the picture, the delicate charm of forest 
lands. 

Laborers in the hedged fields are busy ploughing 
and dragging. There is often a deal of smoke arising 
from their midst, emitted by little bonfires of couch- 
grass, — a weary pest in English farming. In the 
meadows groups of hay-makers, men and boys, appear 
to be having a jolly time over their sweet-smelling 
toil. Scythes are mostly in use, yet here and there an 
American mowing-machine is levelling grass and clover 
in broad swaths that put hand-workers to shame. 

It is a smooth, broad highway we are now on, — an 
old coaching-road from Wimborne Minster to Dor- 
chester. Carriers, with tandem teams of shaggy fet- 



Across Dorset. 185 

locked shire horses, are frequently met this afternoon, 
or are caught up with and swiftly passed. In the 
great wagons, so like arks, are all manner of com- 
modities, — beer, coals, bags of fertilizers, bales of 
wool, grain. 

The huge closed vans of furniture -movers are not 
infrequent. For a small country, there is a deal of 
flitting about over here. My lord and the squire 
move up to London for "the season," and then move 
down again, with the greatest ease imaginable ; or 
they move across the island from one of their man- 
sions to another, or over to the Continent, and think 
nothing of it. To be sure, the very wealthy have 
most things in duplicate at their various abiding- 
places, yet there are certain personal possessions that 
must follow them ; and there are thousands less rich 
in goods who change about with all their household 
gods at their heels. 

The furniture- movers have developed a system ap- 
parently perfect. Merely say the word, and the great 
vans come to your door with a corps of experts, who 
strip the house for you, snugly pack everything 
within these portable sheds, wheel them off to the 
nearest railway station, lift them from their low trucks 
and load them upon " goods vans," which they exactly 
fit, and there is your property ready for railway and 
steamship transport to any part of the United King- 
dom or the Continent. At the terminal station, the 
mover's agents roll the box upon a highway truck 
again ; it is wheeled to your new front door, and 
another lot of experts unpack and put everything in 
its place, — carpets on the floors, curtains on the win- 
dows, and china in the closet, with not a cup broken, 



1 86 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

nor a drapery soiled. All you have to do is to move 
in and pay the bill. In this highly civilized land, if 
your money cannot purchase comfort, it can at least 
rid you of much discomfort. 

On a noble down, before descending into the valley 
of the Froom, is Kingston House, a spreading mansion 
built in the time of George I. Over the open iron 
railing which fences the park we have lovely vistas 
under ancestral oaks, and from this eminence the 
views of the country-side are most agreeable. The 
hamlet of the estate servants is not far off. In the 
recreation-ground, screened from the highway by a 
high hedge, the villagers are having a game of cricket, 
— probably a match with some rival team from the 
Puddle country through which we have just been 
wheeling. Tents are pitched at one end of the care- 
fully rolled field, flags are flying, refreshments are 
being served to a distinguished-looking company in 
camp-chairs, — doubtless gentry from the " big house." 
It is a pretty gala scene as we look through the gate 
for a moment or two. 

A fine spin it is, down the edge of the Froom's 
basin. A postman on a tricycle, bearing, deep-set 
between the wheels, a red box holding at least two 
bushels, thought to race with us, but we soon pulled 
past him, and he smilingly tipped his cap at parting. 

W thought his luggage-box a fine thing for gypsy- 

ing, and, as we two coasted abreast, waxed eloquent 
over the edibles and appointments that could be 
packed into a two-bushel kitchen like that. 

But we strike a head-wind in this trough, and 

W is carrying too much sail to withstand it. The 

last mile into Dorchester (eight thousand inhabitants) 



Across Dorset. 187 

is through rich meadows, over a beautiful stretch of 
road-bed as hard and level as a floor, yet we are forced 
to walk beside our wheels, and bid appetites be patient. 

It proves, however, not altogether a disadvantage. 
The old town is on a ridge, rising sharply from the 
opposite bank. As it looms in stately outline against 
the roseate west, and evening shadows cast upon it a 
mystic spell, Dorchester bears an aspect most vener- 
able. We think of its importance as a Roman camp ; 
of its obstinate resistance to the Danes ; of the bloody 
assizes held here after Monmouth's rebellion, before 
infamous Jeffries ; of the important part played by 
Dorchester merchants in the settlement of Puritan 
New England ; of Hardy's romances, which cluster 
about this old Wessex town, figuring in his tales as 
"Casterbridge." There is time to talk of these things 
and enjoy Dorchester in the twilight glow, so that we 
are glad we walked. 

In the gathering gloom the river takes on a steel- 
blue tone as it swishes rapidly past the rocky base of 
Dorset's ancient county town. Crossing by a broad 
stone bridge, we ascend a lonely hillside street be- 
tween gloomy buildings, and are soon at The King's 
Arms, where — wondrous in rural England ! — we 
have our supper by electric light. 

Charmouth, Dorset, Tuesday, 16th. The museum 
in Dorchester contains a remarkable collection of 
antiquities, — one of the best in the country, outside 
of London. But while full of interest, it is badly kept 
and inartistically arranged. The neighborhood is a 
happy hunting-ground for archaeologists. Besides 
scores of barrows, there are several large intrenched 
camps, — Poundbury and Maiden Castle being prob- 



1 88 Onr Cycling Tour in England. 

ably British, while Maumbury Rings is the best-pre- 
served Roman amphitheatre on the island. All of 
these have responded liberally to the picks and spades 
of explorers. 

It was after eleven when we left the hotel this 
morning. As we go westward into the hill country, 
bicycles are fewer ; and in Dorset a lady on a machine 
appears to be a rarity. There was a goodly crowd of 
curiosity-seekers at the street corners as we trundled 
off, — a silent, unobtrusive crowd, but quite as filled 
with wonder as though we were leaving town on flying- 
machines. 

A long avenue of interlacing oaks brought us past 
the army barracks on the Bridport road. Two officers 
at the gate looked on with admiration, one of them 
saying in an undertone to the other, " That 's the way 
to go on a march ! " Along the crest of the ridge our 
highway stretches out for a mile or two, straight, 
white, and dusty, with unhedged, undulating moorland 
on either side. Southward, the grassy hill- tops are cov- 
ered with barrows and earth-rings of successive British 
and Roman occupations. We are in a storied land. 

Leaving the ridgeway, we descend through a pas- 
ture, over a narrow cart-track, to a lower road winding 
around the base of Maiden Castle. As the bald down 
and its crowning rampart tower close above us, we seem 
in closer communion with the ancients, and rattle mer- 
rily down a stony way into the peaceful hamlet of 
Winterborne St. Martin. Here, by a purling brook 
harnessed to a tandem of water-wheels, is nestled one 
of the quietest and sunniest hamlets in all Dorset. 
To right, the stream, crossed frequently by little stone 
bridges, and flanked with grist-mills ; to left, a row of 



Across Dorset, 189 

thatched cottages and two or three solid farmhouses 
set in fine flower-gardens. In the morning the sun 
rises late over the castle mound, but in the afternoon 
St. Martin basks long in the full glory of daylight. 

First on one side of the path, and then on the 
other, the busy bourne dances along below St. Mar- 
tin's. Now and then it expands into a pool, resting 
quietly beneath a patchy white coat of water crow- 
foot, and plebeian ducks splash in and out with much 
commotion. School-children and laborers line the 
path which leads to dinner, and stop and gape as we 
pick our way slowly amid the flints which strew the 
surface of the by-road. 

Winterborne Steepleton is such another village as 
St. Martin. At Winterborne Abbas we rejoin the 
Bridport coach-road. A quaint, far-away spot this 
Abbas. We fell in love with the post-office, — a low 
thatched cottage, which might have been the birth- 
place of Cromwell or almost any one else of his time, 
for apparently it has not changed these two or three 
hundred years. I photographed it, but sighed for 
the time when we shall have color in our Kodak views, 
not mere lifeless shadow. Around the old parish 
church the out-door tombs were once ostentatious, 
but now they are tumbled down and merely suggest 
their former state. I asked a bright-looking boy what 
river or brook it was whose little valley we had 
descended from the foot of Maiden Castle. " It 
bean't no river or brook, zur," he replied, plainly 
surprised at my ignorance ; " it be only a spring, zur ! " 

Abbas is interesting as an archaeological centre. 
A mile "westward is a small " Druidical " circle of nine 
great stones, some of them seven feet high, the 



190 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

diameter of the area being twenty-eight feet; and 
we were told of other standing stones within the cir- 
cuit of a mile. Celtic barrows on the surrounding 
downs are even more numerous and varied in size and 
outline than on Salisbury Plain. Many have yielded 
rich specimens for the Dorchester Museum. Follow- 
ing a ridge just beyond Abbas, a Roman road crosses 
our highway at right angles and disappears over the 
edge, sharply defined, well-made, but now carpeted 
with sod, and part of a sheep-pasture. 

Numerous streams have their heads in ravines cor- 
rugating the slopes of the narrow water-shed which we 
now traverse for some miles. There are pretty views 
down the little valleys, with wonderful greens and 
silvers and browns on lowland and upland. Below us 
are fine estates, with spreading mansions set among 
trees, deer feeding in the glades, and horses and men 
at work in curious little fields outlined by dark hedge- 
rows. Great flocks of Dorset-downs, with crooked 
horns, nibble the rich herbage on gorse-strewn hills, 
which crowd closer and closer upon us as we progress, 
like billows in the sea. 

We have lunch in the shadow of a hillside wood, 
the air melodious with the calls of wood-pigeons and 
cuckoos resting in the welcome shade. The thorny 
hedge-may is still decked in spots with white blos- 
soms, but it is getting late in the season for this cheer- 
ful bloomer. Pink campion is frequent now, in pretty 
contrast with the dark-green background of the 
hedges, and the banks are speckled blue with dainty 
bird's-eye. As we pass by, palpitating rabbits dart 
from wayside holes and dash up the road in front of 
us, to disappear through the first opening into the 



Across Dorset. 191 

fields, where their ears and haunches go excitedly 
bobbing through the corn. 

Even "the quality" have donkey-carts on these 
far-away rustic roads. We meet ladies and children 
packed into them, either merrily driving themselves, 
or with " Jeems," looking strangely out of place, as, in 
his coachman's buff and white, he poses on a box-seat 
three sizes too small for him. A sour old lady in a 
coffin-like Bath chair drawn by a donkey interests us. 
A boy walking alongside holds the sleepy animal by 
the bits, as though he were a dangerous beast ; and his 
mistress carries a long whip, whether to lash the don- 
key or the lad I know not. I am afraid we smiled 
unconsciously, for the occupant glowered at us as we 
passed, as though we were an impertinent intrusion on 
the scene. 

Longbredy Hill is a "topper" indeed. The sun- 
light is scorching, the white road dry, dazzling, dusty. 
I have both machines to push up the steep incline, and 
often stop for breath. But the panorama, as it slowly 
unrolls, is most superb. Billowy downs surround us, 
some marked by crowning clumps of firs, and here 
and there a line of trees climbing over the hill-tops, 
marking a cross-country road. Near and far, Celtic 
and Roman earthworks diaper the neighboring swells. 
The hillside fields of grass and grain and fallow are 
boldly marked out by hedges ; and down in the dark- 
green creases of the land are laborers' cottages or little 
farmsteads, with bees, flowers, and orchards with young 
fruit. 

It is a sharp coast down the other side of Long- 
bredy. Through a cleft in the hills to the left, we 
have a marvellous view of the dancing sea, over the 



192 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

tops of roadside cottages, and in the middle-ground 
the red-roofed hamlet of Puncknowle nestling at the 
foot of Beckon Hill. A magnificent rustic amphi- 
theatre this. 

Beyond us, the highway again ascends at a sharp 
angle, and there is another warm climb, rewarded at 
the top by a more expanded vista. Through gate- 
openings in the hedges which line this lofty road, we 
see the uneasy ocean flashing far and wide to the 
horizon, upon it graceful sails full-spread, and to the 
southwest the majestic headlands of Lyme Bay. 

A dark basin in the downs holds the tiny hamlet of 
Askerswell, some two hundred feet below us to the 
right. There is a cluster of farm buildings and a cot- 
tage or two. Those Wessex folk down there are well 
sheltered from winter's storms, but they have a rare 
climb up the wooded acclivities to the surrounding hill- 
tops, if they would see what the outer world is like. 

The downs are ridged and dimpled most curiously 
hereabouts ; alternating fields and woods and pasture- 
land, sombre ravines and sunny slopes, white roads and 
dark-green hedge-rows streaking the country-side, pre- 
sent strange effects of color under the white and azure 
of the varied sky. 

We have a three-mile spin down into Bridport 
(seven thousand inhabitants), on the river Brit. It is 
a fishing town, although the haven is a mile seaward ; 
but more important than this industry is that of cord- 
age manufacture, for which it has been noted from 
early times. In the reign of Henry VIII., all the 
cordage for the English navy was made within a cir- 
cuit of five miles from Bridport. The town itself is 
chiefly huddled upon one long, wide, undulating 



Across Dorset. 193 

street, in which there are several good houses. To 
the right the mansion of the lord of the manor is, 
with its ample grounds, picturesquely prominent in 
the scene ; but there is little else in dry, dusty, mat- 
ter-of-fact Bridport to interest searchers for the antique 
and the beautiful. 

For the next four miles, in crossing the water-shed 
betwixt the valleys of the Brit and the Char, we had 
frightfully steep hills to compass. The worst of these 
is at Chidcock (pronounced Chidduk) . It is as sharp 
a grade as a horse could clamber up. A head wind 
had now set in, blowing clouds of dust in our faces ; the 
sun was aggravatingly hot ; and while bending low to 
push the two machines, which seemed made of lead, I 
caught myself at times wondering why we had ventured 
among these abominable hills, and whether they con- 
tinued thus all the way to Land's End. 

But there are as many downhills as up in this life ; 
and when we took our final two- mile coast right into 
delightful Charmouth, on the bank of a noisy little tor- 
rent pouring into the sea just around the shoulder of 
the hill, we thought it well worth the effort to get here. 

We are at The Coach and Horses, with a motherly 
landlady, and the comforts of an English inn of the 
olden time. The good dame has just brought to us the 
inevitable visitors' book, with its curious collection of 
prose and verse, comic and sentimental, original and 
" cribbed," scrawled there by a long line of preceding 
guests. It would be churlish not to add something, 
and one of us writes feelingly, — 

" The hills are up, and the hills are down, 
All on the way to Charmouth town ! " 



13 




CHAPTER X. 

THE HILLS OF DEVON. 

T^XETER, Wednesday, June 17. Charmouth is 
-*—' supposed to be the Carixa of the Romans. It 
was already an ancient place in the ninth century, 
when two bloody contests were fought in this neigh- 
borhood between the Danes and the Saxons. It was 
at Charmouth that one of the party of Charles II. 
stopped to have his horse shod, when the king was 
attempting after the battle of Worcester to escape into 
France. The village blacksmith knew that the old 
shoes were set in the north, and sounded the alarm 
which nearly resulted in his Majesty's capture. 

Quiet people go to Charmouth in these days be- 
cause they can bathe there with less publicity than at 
Lyme Regis, — a popular seaside resort near by. After 
breakfast this morning we followed a shady lane to 
the shore, a half-mile distant. Two dingy bathing- 
machines were drawn up alongside an unpainted, 
battered shed, where fishing- boats are stored in 
winter. The broad, white beach lies smooth as a 
fioor at the base of a recess in the bluish cliffs ; 
two or three miles to the west, well up on the south- 



The Hills of Devon, 195 

em slope of a down, are the roofs and spires of 
fashionable Lyme Regis. 

Two fishermen were leisurely launching their yawl ; 
life seemed easy with them this sunny day, though 
no doubt they have times of storm and stress which 
none but the stoutest can withstand. On a neigh- 
boring cliffside is the solitary white cabin of the 
coast-guard ; one of the blue jackets is walking his 
beat, now scanning the sea with hand over eyes, and 
now raising his spy-glass to scrutinize some far-off 
speck upon the glistening waves ; another, with a 
number of little flags, is going through the dumb show 
of signal practice. Meaningless tasks these, on such 
a bright June day, when sky and sea are placid ; but 
no man can tell when this monotonous drill may be 
put in lively practice for the benefit of imperilled 
humanity, and it behooves the brave guardsmen to 
know their lesson well. 

Bidding adieu to The Coach and Horses at half- 
past eleven, we headed for Axminster, and at once 
began the ascent of one of the steepest of Dorset 
hills. The climb lasted for two miles, with all its 
crooks and turnings. But fresh to our work, and re- 
galed with fine* retrospective views of the rugged 
valley of the Char, the vigorous exercise was not 
unwelcome. The road -makers took pity on the men 
and beasts, towards the last, and pierced a tunnel 
through the topmost peak. 

Emerging from the westward end we had the most 
comprehensive panorama of hill and dale and sea 
yet met with. Heather blackens the open moor- 
land in great patches ; deep woodlands, in which 
cuckoos sound, darkly mantle many a swell ; great 



196 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

flocks of sheep are seen like splashes of white against 
grayish-green pastures ; yellow iris is in a tidal swamp 
far below us to the left. In the meadows along 
our ups and downs are buttercups and daisies ; and 
where hedges, rank and tall, flank the numerous lanes, 
there are pink campion and hosts of ferns, — hart's- 
tongue predominating. 

Sometimes, from our lofty way, we can look right 
down into the gardens and on the roofs of little farm- 
steads. Men and boys are out haying in fields which 
pitch upward at an angle of forty degrees. Crude 
rakes are dragged by patient ponies, which seem- 
ingly have hard work to keep from rolling downhill. 
Behind them leap and crawl their masters, panting 
from the weary task. Once pausing by a break in the 
hedge, we sat on the bank and peered over at a 
bucolic scene beneath. Three men were unloading hay 
from a small cart. Being on an incline, the donkey 
was restive with his load, which frequently slipped 
back with him. There was a deal of whipping and 
shouting, no one apparently thinking to block the 
wheels ; and the ten minutes we watched them were 
spent with small result. A pebble at last loosened 
from our seat to go bounding down %e declivity and 
fall in their midst. All three looked up at us savagely, 
doubtless thinking we had pelted them in mockery of 
their futile efforts at rick-building. 

Hunter's Lodge Inn, where we cross the border 
into Devqji, is a small wayside public. Two or three 
donkey-carts and a carrier's van were standing in 
front. Travellers get thirsty up in these toilsome 
hills ; and this public seems artfully placed to catch 
trade, on the edge of the steep basin of the river Axe. 



The Hills of Devon. 197 

Across the fields to the northeast occasionally come 
the swelling strains of a brass band, and now and then 
wild shouts. There is an old-fashioned rustic fair to- 
day over at Lambeth Castle, where on the top of a 
lofty hill a half-dozen miles away are extensive 
Roman ramparts. It is hard to pass this spectacle 
by, for fairs of the olden type are now few in Eng- 
land, but the report of the enormity of the climb 
thither induces us to husband strength and proceed 
on our way. 

From the county line it is a lively descent for three 
miles into Axminster (three thousand inhabitants) . 
We meet vans, omnibuses, carts, and wagons of all 
imaginable kinds laden with humanity, slowly strug- 
gling up the hill while we flit easily down. There are 
shouts and cheers and laughter as we pass them all, a 
waving of beribboned whips and hats and gaudy 
handkerchiefs. Axminster is having a trade holiday ; 
and every one, master and servant, is going to Lam- 
beth Castle fair. 

As side by side we bowled down into the quaint, 
curious old town, through its narrow, crooked streets, 
we had at each fresh turn a charming bit : timbered 
houses that had survived from the days of Elizabeth 
and Anne ; passing groups of townsfolk tricked out in 
Sunday best ; ostlers in innyards busy furbishing 
their traps ; old coaches that had been dragged out 
from the dust of generations to do duty on this great 
occasion, and were being rapidly filled at the tavern 
doors ; a queer old drinking-fountain in the market- 
place ; the bulky minster, patched with every archi- 
tectural order since the reign of ^thelstan. It was all 
very picturesque. Town and people look, upon this 



198 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

gala day, as though we had suddenly wheeled into the 
midst of the eighteenth century. The famous Axmin- 
ster carpet, however, is no longer made in Axminster ; 
the people do a little as cloth -makers and glovers, but 
the ancient manufacturing glory is no more. 

Crossing the Axe, just without the town, we have, for 
a mile or two on our way to Honiton, a pleasant valley 
road through broad and fertile meadows. Numbers 
of black and white Devon cattle are grazing, and 
creameries are set by the wayside ; rows of conical 
beehives of twisted straw stand on benches by the 
cottage doors, in the shade of rose -vines and la- 
burnums. Literally this is a land of milk and honey. 

Our way is undulating now, as gradually we climb 
to higher altitudes again. The hedge-rows streaking 
the country are gay with flowers, among which we 
detect some of the simpler orchids ; and many of the 
hillside fields, with their wealth of buttercups, are as 
burnished gold. 

We have passed many quaint inns to-day that 
would tickle an artist's fancy. There are two at the 
dilapidated but interesting village of Wilminaton, on a 
long, easy hill-slope three or four miles east of Honiton. 
Perched at either end of the hamlet, each up a flight 
of stone steps, with side entrances, they are clearly of 
hundreds of years standing. A brawling brook, splash- 
ing over the stones, runs down through Wilminaton's 
street, under the deep shade of trees forming the 
boundary of a farmstead. There are, opposite the 
cottages, abundant dipping-places for filling pails and 
watering horses ; and down below, the stream is halted 
in its scramble and made to turn the wheels of a 
small saw-mill. 



The Hills of Devon. 199 

From the next summit we had a down-grade of two 
miles into Honiton (four thousand inhabitants) ; but 
the way is steep and rough, and we found the plunge 
a severe strain on nerves and wrist muscles. An old, 
far-away, shabby sort of town, but prettily situated, is 
this seat of a once important lace-making industry. 
What lace is now made in the district is the product 
of the neighboring villages ; but the real Honiton of 
to-day never saw Honiton. 

It is sixteen miles from here on to Exeter, — the 
county town of Devonshire. The highway leads across 
the valleys of the Otter and the Clist, — through Git- 
tisham, Rockbeare, and Honiton Clist, insignificant 
villages in the midst of a prosperous and fairly level 
region of abundant orchards, and pastures wherein 
feed fine herds of cows and horses. At Rockbeare, 
in the yard of the National school, it was a pretty 
sight to see children noisily circling around a may- 
pole, quite in the olden style ; and at Honiton Clist, 
the teacher had her flock of little ones clustered 
about her in the deep shade of the churchyard yew. 

After thirty-one miles of toilsome cycling in the 
blazing sun of the hottest day we have thus far met in 
England, it was with no small satisfaction that we at 
last trundled into the well-paved streets of Exeter 
(forty-seven thousand inhabitants) just in time to be 
the last guests at our chosen inn, for the city chances 
to be crowded to-day on account of the cattle-market. 

Exeter, Thursday, i8//z. We have had a grand day 
here, filled to the brim with sight-seeing, — Rouge- 
mont Castle, Albert Memorial Museum, the buildings 
of the county government, the Guildhall, and the 
Cathedral. There is a rare wealth of interesting 



200 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

material in this " the one English city in which it is 
certain that human habitation has never ceased from 
the Roman period to the present day." We have 
done our duty by it all, in regulation tourist fashion. 
Page after page of my notebook is full ; but when I 
come to-night to write up my journal, I find it all told 
so well in Murray and Baedeker that the notes have 
been laid aside ; we will freshen up from the guide- 
books if, when we get home, any one asks us awkward 
questions involving dates or statistics. 

We will never need Baedeker or Murray, however, 
to remind us that we have found Exeter a delicious 
dream of antiquities, — such buildings, such alleys, 
such courts, such quaint effects on every hand ! The 
ancient city is so full of the savor of the olden time 
that we seem to be walking about in the midst of an 
historical pageant gotten up for the especial benefit 
of American tourists. 

Moreton-Hampstead, Friday, igfk. The cattle- 
market was in full swing at Exeter this morning. 
We got off at half-past eleven, wheeling through busy 
High and Fore streets, to the Exe bridge, which 
crosses over into the suburb of St. Martin's. 

These Devon folk seem never before to have seen 
a lady on a bicycle. There was a deal of curiosity 

over in Dorset over W 's mount, but here it has 

developed into positive amazement. Everywhere we 
go we see advertisements of cycles posted on the dead 
walls and in the railway stations, and among them 
pictures of "ladies' safeties," with ladies riding them ; 
yet the appearance of a lady actually on one of the 
new-fangled machines creates a genuine sensation in 
steady-going Wessex. At first we were exceedingly 



The Hills of Devon. 201 

annoyed, and half inclined to abandon the trip to 
save being stared at ; but on finding that the popular 
attitude was simply that of pleasant curiosity over a 
novelty, and had in it no element of rudeness, we 
concluded to carry out our plans, with the result that 
soon annoyance gave place to amusement. We have 

much quiet fun over the matter, W and I, and 

wonder why we had not thought to contract with 
some of those enterprising soap and cocoa manufac- 
turers, whose enamelled-iron signs fairly plaster Eng- 
land, to attach their advertisements to our much- 
gazed-at wheels. It would have been a profitable 
venture for the advertisers, and of material assistance 

to our exchequer. The Queen, I assure W , 

could not have had much more attention paid her in 
these western hills. 

The banks of the river Exe are hereabout crowded 
with dingy factories, and the stream is a muddy 
sewer. We paused on the bridge to take a photo- 
graphic shot at the cattle- market, getting a good 
bird's-eye view. The bustle on the bridge is ordinarily 
great ; as we prepare to wheel off into poverty- 
stricken St. Martin's, curiosity to see us occasions a 
veritable blockade of the western approach which 
requires the aid of two policemen to straighten out. 

Safely off at last, with the gaping town crowd out 
of sight around the corner, we pass rapidly through 
the dingy suburb, and heading southwest to More- 
ton- Hampstead, on the edge of Dartmoor Forest, 
are soon mounting a long, dusty hill-road on the 
western rim of the Exe's basin. The day is the 
warmest yet. Shut in between the tall walls and 
close-grown hedges which line our upward path, the 



202 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

pulverized macadam rising in clouds about us after 
each passing vehicle, we oftentimes struggle for 
breath, and come to agree that there are drawbacks 
in cycling amid these interminable hills of Devon 
during a hot wave. 

An occasional whiff of air is obtainable on the 
summits, along the ridges, and through gate-openings 
in the hedges ; but the heat has been oppressive 
all day, and our down-grades often spoiled by new 
metalling, as yet unrolled. The country grows wilder, 
and more tumbled and unkempt, as we approach 
Dartmoor, and the art of road-making is not so highly 
developed as in the eastern counties. 

At the top of our first hill we rested on a high 
bank by the roadside in the shade of a clump of 
firs, enjoying in detail the broad panorama of the 
valley of the Exe. In the middle-ground the tran- 
septal towers of Exeter Cathedral rise massively above 
a setting of trees ; and all roundabout is an undulat- 
ing sea of red-tiled roofs. Stretched far beyond, on 
hill and plain, lies a deep-green mantle of interlacing 
forest branches, pierced here and there by the gray 
tower of a parish church, — Exminster, Topsham, 
St. David's, and Upton Pynes. 

There came along the highway towards the city a 
tall, scrawny man, with bad teeth, a spotless white 
shirt adorned with a gilt stud, and a paper collar 
guiltless of necktie. What he said to me, as he 
paused to look us over and examine our machines, 
which rested against the foot of the bank, I could 
not at first make out. It was the first time we had 
heard the peculiar dialect of the Dartmoor, and our 
friend good-naturedly repeated his remark several 



The Hills of Devon. 203 

times at my request, before I came to understand 
it as " Hev yous brik deown?" 

He stopped a quarter of an hour to chat with us, 
but all the time stood deferentially, unheeding oui 
invitation to be seated. After a few phrases I caught 
his tricks of speech, and could follow him readily as 
he freely gossiped about his little world. A small 
farmer, living a mile or two back in the hills, he .was 
on his way to the Exeter market. " A smart cattle- 
market " was Exeter, he said ; " wi' a good bit o' 
buyers deown from t' midland ceounties." In the 
midlands, he explained, the ground in the winter is 
often much under water, and farmers do not succeed 
in wintering stock; so in the spring they purchase 
cattle in Devon, where the soil is thin, and fatten 
them on their own good summer grass-lands. " In 
Lonnun, zur, there is good sweep o' folk 'arnin' 
money the plinty, and" — with a knowing air — 
"spindin' all theys can gets too, zur ! " This is the 
reason, he said, why all the best cattle eventually go 
up to London. 

I asked him about the neighboring country, but 
his geographical knowledge was limited. Moreton, 
where we were going, was but twelve miles away. 
He was surprised when I asked him if he had been 
there, or to Tavistock, twenty-five miles farther west. 
Not he ! Moreton was a " goodish-sized village, and 
Tavistock, too; so they says as has bin thet way." 
He had never been east of Exeter, nor farther west 
than Long Down End, a few miles out on our path, 
— " alius in these parts, zur ; it takes heap sight o' 
crowns to travel, it do, zur ! But I do remember, zur, 
as I was oncet in Shillingford, jest over t' 'ill, zur; 



204 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

you '11 zee it an' you git on a bit." I recommended 
him to get a bicycle, and go around the country in- 
dependently; but he declared he would never care 
to learn, it would be hard work. He inquired the 
price of a machine like mine, and whistled as he 
glanced at it again, possibly to see if it was gold- 
plated. " But, zur, thee couldst get a 'orse an' trap 
for thet, zur, and then you 'd hev somethin' ! " 

Yankees are not the only inquisitive people on 
earth. He wanted to know whence we came. I 
replied, from Canterbury. " How far might thet 
be ? " His eyes opened wide when told it was three 
hundred miles away. " My ! but thet 's a long dis- 
tance, thet ! A' deed n't know the country were so 
big as all thet ! " And yet this man was no dul- 
lard, simply a commonplace peasant farmer, doubtless 
shrewd enough in handling midland-county cattle- 
buyers, but with an environment exceptionally nar- 
row, and knowing nothing of the world beyond 
Dartmoor and the Exe. Let him emigrate to Amer- 
ica, and brush up his wits a bit, and he might cred- 
itably represent his " deestrik " in the Legislature. I 
have seen worse timber in our ship of State. 

Just as the may is getting out of blossom, the 
heather is coming in. The tangled moors are blush- 
ing with its delicate purple bloom. The roads are 
often cut deep through red sandstone and red clay ; 
and here and there are great out-croppings of weather- 
stained rock, gray with moss and lichens. These 
landscape tints — the reds, the purples, the grays, 
the forest browns and greens, and the verdant mead- 
ows — are all in exquisite harmony with the deep 
blue overhead. By the roadside are orchids, butter- 



The Hills of Devon. 205 

cups, and fox-gloves, while ox-eye daisies spangle the 
fields. 

Long Down End is a hillside cluster of four or five 
stone cottages, bedaubed with whitewash. Rude, for- 
bidding structures these, glaringly white in the fierce 
heat of midday. One of the group is a shop and 
post-office ; opposite is a farmhouse of the poorer 
sort ; and the others are laborers' dwellings, beside 
which dirty children and mangy curs crouch listlessly 
in the narrow strip of shade. 

The entrance to the farmhouse was through a pig- 
yard. Upon making known our wish for milk, we 
were shown by a toothless dame into the most un- 
inviting dairy I ever laid eyes upon. It was cool, 
or we should not have accepted the invitation to eat 
our lunch there. The farm- wife, slightly daft, we 
thought, and deaf as ,a post, stood by our side chat- 
tering incoherently about pigs, chickens, and dairy 
interests, until we were glad at last to be rid of her 
and get under way again. 

Up hill and down we slowly progressed. Forest 
and copse carpet the undulating earth, with here and 
there open meadows and small fields. Sheep and 
cattle are occasionally seen, but they apparently are 
not so numerous as to the east of the Exe. We pass, 
now and then, the gate and lodge of some country 
estate, and sometimes see the mansion itself perched 
up on a hillside, darkly framed by timber-growth, 
closing a charming forest vista. On the highway are 
carriers and farm carters, and men and women in 
smart pony traps, all hands dismounting at the foot 
of each hill, for Englishmen are merciful to their 
beasts. 



206 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

Two thirds out, towards Moreton, is the river Teign 
(pronounced Teen), deep down in a charming vale. 
The wooded hills slope sharply up from a narrow 
meadow, through which the stream comes tumbling 
down in pretty cascades. Our pathway leads up this 
river for several miles to gain the highlands towards 
Doccombe. No spot in the Devon hills can be 
more delightful than this isolated dale. 

In one especially fascinating spot, where the river 
runs upon a comparatively level stretch for two or 
three hundred yards, it is employed to turn the 
grindstone of a lonely blacksmith's shop. Hard by 

is the smith's cottage. While W was treating 

a group of his children to sweets, I entered the shop 
and engaged the master in conversation. 

" Fine hills, these ! " 

" I ne'er look at t' 'ills, zur ! " he responded 
rather gloomily. 

"Too busy, I suppose?" 

" Oh, no, zur, it bean't thet, zur ; but w'en I 'se not 
workin', I 've plenty else to do then be lookin' at 
'ills." 

The grimy Devon mountaineer seemed personally 
affronted at the presence of the hills, and I soon dis- 
covered the nature of the offence : they shut him out 
from the world, and a chance to spread in his busi- 
ness. He was as a caged bird ambitious to fly. In 
America, this restive spirit would have moved to a 
more congenial locality; but he had inherited a 
niche here, and every other niche in England was 
filled, — there was no place for him elsewhere. It 
is difficult for an American, able to select from an 
abundance of pastures new, to realize that a man 



The Hills of Devon. 207 

may feel he is a prisoner to the conditions in which 
he was born ; but we may come to something like it 
when our land is as densely populated as this. 

At Dunsford, a mile or so farther up the vale, is 
New Bridge, — a handsome stone crossing with several 
spans, dating from 18 16. The Teign, a few yards 
wide, is here a series of delightful cascades, and the 
neighborhood a rich sketching-ground for artists. 
There is a small inn just off the road, down some 
rustic steps, and a gay party were having tea under 
a broad beech which shadows the door. Their car- 
riage stood some distance off; they must have driven 
out to this beauty-spot from Moreton or Exeter. 

As we creep up among the hills, the stream now 
swiftly winds and flashes in the green meadows far 
below us, and now bounds and booms amid bowlders 
by the roadside. At last the river is permanently 
left in its margins of greenery, as we zigzag up the 
long water-shed to the south. Above us sharply rise 
slopes of reddish granite, here and there denuded of 
vegetation or purplish with heather, but generally 
grown thick to copse, which was now being cut at 
many points, the wonder being how the woodsmen 
stand to their task upon such steep inclines. Occa- 
sionally the highest hill-tops — or " tors " — of the 
region display granite bowlders so delicately poised 
upon their summits it seems as though a human 
hand might set them rolling and crashing into the 
dark abysses. Numberless springs trickle through 
roots and vines overhanging our hedgeless mountain 
path ; hart's-tongue fern luxuriates in shaded nooks ; 
and blocks of pink and white and yellow flowers, 
many of them new to us, diaper the banks. 



208 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

Now and then a crude farmstead is seen climbing 
a neighboring hillside, — whitewashed stone cabins, 
huddled closely together, the farmer's front door 
often opening into the barnyard. Farmhouses in 
Devon are, as a rule, far less attractive than else- 
where on our route ; men and beasts are in too close 
proximity for the senses of the fastidious. Here and 
there is a fine estate, but the small holdings nearly 
all have rude buildings, of which the surrounding 
stone is the chief material; even the chimneys and 
the sheds are of solid granite, and thatch is almost 
universal. There is every indication of a harsh strug- 
gle for existence in these rocky fastnesses ; and fre- 
quent storms doubtless drive mountaineers to crowd 
close to their winter tasks. Stone walls now often 
take the place of hedges, and the gate-posts are mor- 
tised slabs stood on end. The roadway is rough, 
doubtless never seeing a steam-roller ; and we go 
bumping painfully along amid inspiring scenes. 

The sun had just slipped behind the lofty summit 
of Mardon Down, and Nature was hushed in deepen- 
ing shadows, when we came up with a farmer bend- 
ing over a pasture gate, and, pipe in mouth, listlessly 
gazing at his flock of sheep. He was a rough, good- 
natured, coatless fellow, with an intelligent gleam in 
his eyes, and fiery red beard and hair. Turning 
round at my greeting, and leaning against the bars, 
he crossed his legs, thrust his thumbs in the arm- 
holes of his unbuttoned waistcoat, and seemed anx- 
ious for a chat. 

It was not often, he said, that he met travellers out 
this way, excepting in the shooting, when the swells 
came down to have a crack at the grouse ; there 



The Hills of Devon. 209 

were n't many deer left on the moor, these days. As 
for himself, he had been out a bit into the world. 
He had been in the midland counties, and in Liver- 
pool, in his time, and had seen a thing or two of life ; 
but he had returned to Devon because it was the land 
of his birth, and there was more freedom up here in 
the hills than in the great towns. Still, the soil was 
too thin for profitable agriculture ; it was good for 
sheep, though, being dry underfoot. The hills were 
grand, no doubt, but they grew very monotonous to 
people living among them all the time. It was hard 
work getting round, and one could n't be very neigh- 
borly. He lived on a freehold that was handed down 
to him, but he often wished it were on the plain. 

He pointed out one of his flocks over on the slope 
of Mardon Down ; it looked like a clump of white 
stones against the dark heather. We could see his 
home, — a cluster of whitewashed stone buildings 
nestled on a hillside half a mile away to the right, 
very picturesque in its isolation. A deep valley in- 
tervened, through which, half hidden by the trees, 
a mountain stream noisily tore its way, half choked 
with bowlders. A rough bridge of unhewn stone 
spanned the torrent, and a footpath zigzagged up 
through the brush and copse to the barnyard gate. 
It was a pretty scene for a painter : but we agreed 
with the farmer that his home was altogether too 
difficult of approach for every-day life. 

To the left of our road was an ancient hanger of 
beech and elm, weird enough in the fading light. A 
Roman road had once penetrated this bit of primeval 
woodland, but it had now degenerated into a cart- 
track, choked with a wondrous undergrowth of many 
14 



210 Our Cycling Tour in Englaiid. 

sorts. Round about were strewn granite bowlders 
that had slid down from some unseen hill beyond; 
half buried in moss were these sprawling stones, and 
embowered deep with ferns and ivy. 

At Doccombe, just beyond in a dip between two 
sharp grades, we paused awhile to talk, in the cool 
evening, with a party of laborers and their wives go- 
ing out with bills and mattocks to work in a stony 
allotment field. Not far on was more open country, 
with estates again, and rude wayside hedges of min- 
gled may, hazel, and scrub-oak. 

At last, after toiling on a long ascent, we were re- 
warded at the top by seeing spread before us a roll- 
ing vale, dark-green with woods, where a parish 
church-spire rising above the tree-tops showed the 
whereabouts of Moreton-Hampstead (two thousand 
inhabitants) . It is several miles down to the village, 
over a winding road which is often so closely ter- 
raced that a tumble would have pitched us over the 
bank to a lower reach. There were charming views 
of the valley, changing at every turn, and the twilight 
tones and lights were most exquisite. 

The village brass band was practising in the street 
as we bowled past the old church and almshouse, be- 
tween the white and cream washed walls of stone 
cottages, and into the little market-square. The 
landlady at The White Hart, in the same breath that 
bore our welcome, proudly bade us hearken unto the 
band ; it had much improved of late, and Tavistock 
had n't any at all ! The would-be musicians stood in 
a circle without the coffee-room window while we sat 
at supper, — doubtless the landlady's treat ; and as 
they blew, in our hearts we congratulated Tavistock. 




CHAPTER XL 



FROM DARTMOOR TO THE SEA. 



XT ORTH TAWTON, Saturday, June 20. We dis- 
•** ^ cussed the situation pretty thoroughly last night 
at Moreton-Hampstead. It had been our intention 
to go on to Land's End, seventy-five miles farther to 
the southwest. But the hot weather and the steep- 
ness of the hills combined to change our plan ; so 
we resolved to strike out northward to Bristol Chan- 
nel and then work east again by the way of Bath and 
Oxford. Mountaineering on cycles in such weather 
is hard work, and we are out for pleasure. 

There is much of interest at Moreton. It is a fa- 
vorite point of departure for the depths of Dartmoor 
Forest, whose wooded hills lie stretched out forbid- 
dingly on the western horizon, though Tavistock is 
the chief stopping-place for tourists. On the summit 
of a graceful swell is the parish church. Just without 
the churchyard is a field several acres in extent, a 
part of the ancient glebe, and once a sanctuary, or 
consecrated field, where criminals could claim the 
protection of holy church ; it is now the public rec- 
reation-ground. There is a seventeenth-century alms- 



212 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

house in the village street, built in a Spanish style, 
with a picturesque arcade running along the front. 
Not far away, in the midst of a widening of the road, 
— as though the newer cottages had courteously 
gone around the old trunk, rather than force it to 
be cut down, — is a giant elm with gnarled and 
broken limbs, a mass of sprouting greenery in this 
avenue of ugly lime-wash. There are the remnants 
of an ancient stone cross at the base, and the story 
goes that in olden times, on" certain festal days, a 
dancing-platform was erected in the stout branches, 
for the merry lads and lasses of Moreton-Hampstead. 
The woman who keeps the stationery shop, and sold 
us photographs of the region, said her family came 
here two hundred years ago this summer, and had 
kept this self-same shop for a century. Her grand- 
father's diary, which she ran across the other day, 
spoke of his dancing in the old village elm. 

It was so warm to-day that we stopped in Moreton 
till three in the afternoon, wanderingly leisurely about 
the place. Having given up Tavistock, we felt an 
interest in seeing the daily coach depart thither from 
The White Hart. It had but two passengers, a rural 
bridal couple on their honeymoon journey. The 
Dartmoor " tourist season " has not yet opened. In 
fact, we seem to be ahead of the tourists everywhere. 
$ The season here is not much over six weeks long, 
in July and August. No wonder the landlords at 
the popular resorts seem in a hurry to fleece their 
patrons, the opportunity to do it is so brief. 

Starting from Moreton, as the afternoon shadows 
were lengthening, we knew not where we should pass 
the night. Whether to descend to the sea by the 



From Dartmoor to the Sea. 213 

valley @f the Torridge or the valley of the Taw was 
an open question which the fortunes of the road must 
determine ; the parting of the ways was near Merry- 
meet Inn, some eight miles out. If the former route 
were chosen, Okehampton, with its ancient Norman 
castle, was our goal ; if the latter, it was to be the 
market-town of North Tawton, unless we could make 
Chulmleigh. 

The highway this afternoon was wofully stony, and 
filled with exasperating bump-holes, while patches of 
fresh metalling caused us frequently to dismount even 
on the best of grades. While there were many steep 
climbs, perhaps two thirds of our short journey was 
downhill, and altogether we rejoiced that we were 
not dragging our weary bones over the mountains 
of the forest towards Tavistock. 

Easton, two miles out, is a poor little village of la- 
borers' cottages, — not such vine- embowered cottages, 
set in bright gardens, as we have met in the east, 
but crude whitewashed boxes of stone, set close upon 
the roadway, cheerless and poverty-stricken, the front 
doors swarming with children, pigs, and fowls. Life 
among the lowly, here on Dartmoor, is not attractive. 

A few miles beyond the ancient seat of Shilstone 
House — a considerable estate — we met a flock of 
unattended sheep skurrying down the road, and had 
something of difficulty in getting through the bewil- 
dered throng. A few minutes later, shepherd himself, 
red- faced and dusty, came hurrying after his wards, 
excitedly garrulous in his inquiries as to their where- 
abouts. 

Later, we paused for a drink at an old toll- house 
guarding the forks of the turnpike, where it was es- 



214 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

sential at last to choose our route, north or north- 
west. The whitewashed cottage is no longer needed 
for a toll-gatherer now that the highway is free. It 
is occupied by an old peasant woman, hard-featured, 
but of kindly manner, who, in the roughest Dartmoor 
dialect, enlarged on the merits of her deep well, from 
which she drew for us a cooling potion. She had no 
words, however, too bitter for " narsty shepherd," 
who had " stopped f summat o' drink at t' ain yen- 
der " — pointing towards Whiddon Down, a quarter 
of a mile northward — and let his flock get into 
her garden. The fellow was doubtless fresh from 
a tongue-lashing when we met him. Our hostess — 
short-skirted, her blue-stockinged feet thrust into ca- 
pacious carpet-slippers, a white widow's cap well back 
on her head, and her great brown hands clasped be- 
neath a blue jean apron — had evidently had expe- 
rience with the evils of drink in her own household, 
for she was fairly beside herself in denouncing the 
Whiddon " ain " and all its frequenters, vowing that 
a cup of water from her own good well was worth a 
barrel of their " wretched speerits," and, moreover, 
hurt nobody. 

It took little encouragement to induce her to prat- 
tle on, in quaint speech, over her homely affairs. 
She paid rent of seventeen dollars and a half a year 
for her little cottage and the few square rods of gar- 
den back of it ; there were some chickens and a pig 
to help out, and stray pennies from thirsty travellers 
who knew of the deep well, yet it was hard picking 
against rent- day, though the good God had thus far 
kept her from the workhouse, — which would n't be 
for long, though, and she getting on past seventy. 



From Dartmoor to the Sea. 215 

This good woman at the cross-road thought the 
way smoother towards North Tawton than towards 
Okehampton, although she had travelled neither, and 
so we bent northward. Soon we saw the much- 
abused " ain " at Whiddon Down. There is a black- 
smith's shop under the same roof, and near by a house 
and a laborer's cottage. Just as I had taken a snap- 
shot of the little hamlet, a queer old man, clean- 
shaven, and in rusty corduroy, came hurrying towards 
us from the inn door, inquiring, " Be yous tekin' a 
likeness o' our willage? " On being assured that the 
village had just had its likeness taken, he expressed 
surprise at the ease and rapidity of the operation, 
saying a " paint artist " last summer had spent an 
half-day in " pictur'n' oF ain ; " but the world was 
full of new-fangled things, he had heard tell, and had 
I done it by electricity? 

On the bald western slope of lofty Lang Down, is 
a collection of isolated gray stone buildings, — the 
Board school, with a house for the teacher and 
another for the laborer, whose wife is care-taker. 
There are few dwellings in sight from this elevated 
perch ; and of the pleasant-faced janitor who came to 
the wall of the schoolyard to see us, we asked where 
the scholars came from. The dialect of this young 
working- woman was perfect of its kind, and her enun- 
ciation being better than that of our toll-house friend, 
we more readily noted the peculiarities of her speech. 
For the school-mistress, who had long lived in the house 
adjoining, but had just thrown up her office and left 
for New Zealand, our informant had but one pronoun, 
— " her," — which she handled volubly, sometimes with 
amusing effect. " 'Er grew tired, 'er deed, wi' 'er goin's 



216 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

and comin's, m'am, all r er long years on 'er 'ill; an' 
'er says, an' says, an' says, as 'er is goin'. An' fust I 
knew, 'er bags an' boxes 'er is packin' off New Zea- 
land ways ; an' 'er sail yesserday by 'er big sheep, 'er 
do ; an' 'er 's good 'oman as if ever was, an' I knows 
it ! " There were thirty children at the school, said 
this good gossip, with an average attendance of twenty. 
They came from farmhouses roundabout, some of 
them as far as two miles away. I pitied them their 
daily climb. 

We might better have gone west from the toll- 
house for a few miles, and taken the road parallel- 
ing this, down the valley of the Taw branch. As 
it was, being misdirected by the mistress of the well, 
we were obliged to cross numerous water-sheds of 
minor streamlets emptying into that river, by a poor, 
dusty path cut through red sandstone and clay. Farm- 
buildings passed on our way were of the cheerless 
pattern of blank, whitewashed walls, so familiar to us 
the past few days, with barnyards between the house 
door and the street. Children along the roadside 
were unkempt, and their thick dialect often difficult 
to comprehend. The few bridges were crude affairs 
of stone and mud, without the artistic proportions 
elsewhere met with. 

The Southwestern railway station is in a valley a 
mile or so south of North Tawton. It is a hard climb 
to the top of the hill, on whose northern slope lies the 
sleepy village. A party of laborers returning home- 
ward from the day's toil rest at the summit, awaiting 
our approach, and look on with stolid surprise while 
we mount for our downward spin through the double 
line of white cottages. The word seems somehow to 



From Dartmoor to the Sea. 217 

have been passed ahead, for as we bowl along in the 
narrow, stony street, every half-door and window is 
crowded with the heads of villagers to see us on our 
way. 

" Oi tell yous ! " 

" My ! 'oman ! But thet 's ut ! " 

" See 'er ! but 'er keep up wi' 'er man a' right ! " 

We hear this running fire of comment, in under- 
tone from door to door, all down the village street to 

The Gostwicke Arms. I assure W she is the 

envy of her sex and the admiration of every man in 
North Tawton, but she persists in saying her prefer- 
ence is for less demonstrative tokens of regard. 

Moreton is not alone with her village band. North 
Tawton's musicians paraded the street while we 
supped, — a motley but intensely serious procession, 
tailed by the little village shoemaker with the bass 
drum. When not pounding the calf-skin, he beat 
time in the air with his wadded baton, wagging his 
frowzy red head in solemn unison. 

The Gostwicke Arms/ which has been kept up as a 
tavern these three hundred years, stands on the tri- 
angular market-place. Across the way is the market- 
house, a forbidding two-story structure of blackish 
stone, with an open grass-grown court below, fenced 
in by iron gates. In the midst of the street is a 
cheap, red-brick clock- tower, with a wretched at- 
tempt at Gothic ornamentation in wood, and at 
the base seats for idlers, — the inevitable "Jubilee 
Memorial." 

A steep, narrow lane, between the dark market- 
house and a glaring white cottage, leads up to the 
churchvard and the church. It is seldom one sees a 



218 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

sanctuary here that is not ancient. England appears 
several centuries ago to have been sufficiently supplied 
with churches for all time to come. The congrega- 
tions are often small enough now ; but our ancestors 
were more outwardly devout. This North Tawton 
church has a stuccoed tower, apparently Saxon, 
crowned by a curious little steeple. Its clock has 
but one face, and that looks towards the village, while 
on the opposite side is set an old sun-dial. An 
octagonal pillar of stone stands by the gravel path 
near the west door ; it is the sole relic of a mediaeval 
market-cross, which long did duty on the site of the 
present jubilee memorial. Judging by the broad 
streak of rust down one side, it was used in its latter 
days as a lamp-post, like the one we saw at Downton, 
on the confines of New Forest. 

North Tawton is a village of, say, three thousand 
inhabitants. A Yorkshire firm has, at the base of the 
hill, a woollen factory, employing two hundred hands. 
We sauntered down towards their quarter in the twi- 
light of this long day. There are a few fashionable 
houses on the way, but the greater part of the build- 
ings are the cottages and dwellings of workmen and 
tradespeople, and the general effect is dreary. 

A Salvation Army officer was haranguing the almost 
empty street in a loud, cracked voice. Here and 
there was a head out of a window or half-door, and 
there were perhaps a half-dozen men lounging around 
in the neighborhood, in addition to the two in red 
blouses who supported the orator. Soon the latter 
fell back exhausted, and one of his comrades took up 
the tale. The rude dialect of Dartmoor sounded 
strangely harsh in these hoarse throats ; and it was 



From Dartmoor to the Sea. 219 

with difficulty we could follow the preaching, which 
was in the familiar, fervid style of the disciples of 
" blood and fire." 

A working-man stood near us under a tree, sucking 
an antiquated pipe, and looking on with an expres- 
sion in which disgust and amusement were equally 
mingled. " Rum uns, they ! " said he, turning to 
me ; " a' 'at 's lift o' t' h'army, zur. Druv nearly a' 
thim ou' town, zur; but can't git rid o' a' thim, zur, 
an' more 's th' pity ! " At last the speaking ceased, 
and one of the trio started a doleful hymn, while his 
comrades, with hats in hand, started on a collecting 
tour among the listeners at door and window. Our 
neighbor quickly drew away at the approach of a 
tithe-gatherer, saying he " 'ad n't no use for 'alle- 
lujah nonsense," and lifting his grimy cap, bade us 
good-night. 

North Tawton, Sunday, 21st. Armed with Prayer- 
Books and hymnals, lent us by the stately landlady, 
who after breakfast made us a formal call for the pur- 
pose, we went over to morning service at the parish 
church. The parson, a tall, dignified, kindly gentle- 
man of middle life, entered the yard by the lich- 
gate and walked up the gravel path, arrayed in silk 
hat and cassock, with his women-folk about him, all 
bowing sweetly to the parishioners, right and left. 

The pews are of the high-backed fashion, those 
next to the walls facing the centre. The organ is in 
the tower, over the entrance. In front of it was 
ranged a double mixed quartette, the young men and 
women being in their Sunday best, and much inclined 
to giggle and make sport behind the rail-curtains 
when not themselves taking part in the programme. 



220 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

In the sloping galleries on either side of the organ, 
were the boys and girls of the parish, — boys to the 
left, girls to the right. The small boys were more 
restive than the choir ; and here and there, perched 
in state upon the walls of the pews, were larger boys, 
who served as monitors, and seemed to have their 
hands full. Under the gallery, in a sort of amphi- 
theatre, were crowded little children, kept in order 
by the Sunday-school teachers, — intelligent-looking 
young women, smartly attired. It must have been 
some sort of seating arrangement like this that our 
Puritan fathers carried over with them to New Eng- 
land, for we read continually in the church annals of 
the day of the difficulty of maintaining decent order 
among " ye ungodly boys in ye gallerie." The sing- 
ing was simple and of fair character ; and the same 
may be said of the sermon, — all very Low Church, 
except the changing of vestments. During the open- 
ing offices the clergyman wore a fur- fringed doctor's 
hood and surplice ; but just before the sermon the 
sexton relieved him of both, leaving him to preach 
in his cassock, worn beneath, — a ceremonial new 
to us. 

The landlord is a jolly fellow, and evidently a popu- 
lar character in the village. He had spent eight years 
roughing it in America, back in the 50's, had seen 
St. Paul, Minnesota, when there were but three hun- 
dred houses there, and had voyaged on a log raft 
down to St. Louis. We spent much time this after- 
noon gossiping with our host over his experiences in 
the West, and went with him to the top of the house 
to visit the studio of his brother, who is an artist of 
some local note. The brother, himself much of a wan- 



From Dartmoor to the Sea. 221 

derer, and a Bohemian, entertained us pleasantly with 
specimens of his art. He has done some really credit- 
able original work in Dartmoor scenery, and turns off 
with facility quite excellent copies of Landseer, — pot- 
boilers, he said, much more salable than originals. 
The great dining-hall of the inn, the centre of interest 
on market-days, is panelled with his work, copied 
and original. 

Barnstaple, Monday, 22^/. For two weeks past 
the daily papers have brought us news of rain almost 
everywhere else in the island save where we chanced 
to be. We are dodging the storms most remarkably. 
With us sunshine has prevailed ever since leaving 
Alton, and now we are having a long " spell " of hot 
weather. To avoid the fiercest of the heat, we waited 
in North Tawton until four o'clock this afternoon be- 
fore starting on our run of twenty- seven miles down 
the valley of the Taw to Barnstaple town. 

There was not much running, the first seven miles 
out to Eggesford. In crossing over from the Taw 
branch to the river Taw itself, we had the water-sheds 
of several of the former's affluents to climb, and found 
the road blanketed an inch deep with dust. Through 
gate-openings on the hill-tops, came cooling whiffs of 
air from off the wide-spreading moor ; but in general 
we walked in a narrow way, close set with hedges, 
and the atmosphere was oppressive. 

Eggesford is composed chiefly of laborers' cot- 
tages. There is a prosperous-looking inn, The Fox 
and Hounds, set off to one side of the isolated cattle- 
market, and a neat, wholesome appearance to the 
village in general. It is the centre of the Duke of 
Portsmouth's magnificent estate, through which our 



222 Our Cycfaig Tour in England. 

highway leads as far as the inn and railway station of 
Portsmouth Arms, five miles beyond. 

Emerging from Eggesford, the road closely follows 
the river Taw, sometimes to the east and sometimes 
to the west. The valley is charmingly picturesque. 
On either side are heavily wooded acclivities, the 
stream itself meandering through a rich meadow 
averaging a third of a mile in width, gay with butter- 
cups and dotted with grazing cows and sheep and 
horses. The highway is for the most part on a bench 
cut in the timbered slope. Often we pass for a mile 
or two beneath an arch of interlacing boughs. Fre- 
quent springs gurgle over the inner bank, and gather- 
ing in wayside brooks, rush through culverts beneath the 
stony path, in noisy haste to seek the meadows at our 
feet. The arts of forestry are in full progress here. 
The trees are cut up on the hillsides, and rolled down 
to widened places in the road, there to be stripped of 
bark and made ready for transportation on the rail- 
way, which closely follows the river below. Fagots 
are leaning against the bank by hundreds to-day ; the 
small branches, carefully peeled, are done up in 
bundles as well, and wagons loaded with bark may 
be seen unloading into goods' vans at the occasional 
stations. Now and then the Taw closely hugs the 
slope traversed by our highway, and a slip might 
easily shunt us into the stream. There are pretty 
effects in such sweeps as these. Sometimes the 
graceful river is hidden in a bower of trees and over- 
hanging bushes ; and at other its little cascades and 
swirling rapids are half revealed ; a bubbling, splash- 
ing, swishing torrent is this tantalizing Taw, darting 
hither and thither, making music for us on our way. 



From Dartmoor to the Sea. 223 

It is a quiet, isolated road down the Taw valley to 
the sea. Between the few small hamlets which cluster 
around the railway stations but little life is seen. We 
meet a few foresters' wagons, but only two traps are 
seen all the way from North Tawton to the outskirts 
of Barnstaple (styled Barum on the milestones and 
finger-posts) . 

We arrived at Bishop's Tawton, a rustic village in 
the Barnstaple suburbs, just as the inhabitants were 
enjoying the twilight after supper. Our advent was 
the source of much astonishment. As we paused at 
a rude well for a drink, a score or so of ancient men 

and dames clustered about us to examine W 's 

machine. There was a subdued murmur of applause 
as she deftly mounted and made off by my side. We 
felt we had conferred a blessing on these good gossips 
by giving them something to talk about apart from 
themselves. 

Newport, a nearer suburb, is modern and preten- 
tious ; but the well-paved street was an agreeable 
variety after the ruts and dust of the valley way. It 
was now getting dark, and we are without lanterns on 
this trip, having no thought of needing them. The 
sun had set to-day at 8.18, and the law of the road 
allows cyclists to run an hour after that without a 
light ; but as it was now 9.20 by the Newport church 
clock, we interpreted a policeman's glance thither as 
a gentle hint, and walked the last mile into Barnstaple 
(twelve thousand five hundred inhabitants) down a 
most delightful descent. 

Despite the darkness, dimly pricked out by widely 

separated gas lamps, W 's wheel appeared to 

attract general attention in the quiet streets of this 



224 O ur Cycling Tour in England. 

dingy old town. By the time we reached The Royal 
and Fortescue Arms we had an interested following of 
about one hundred Barumites, old and young of both 
sexes, who lingered about until ostler and Boots had 
trundled our conveyances within, and shut the great 
door in their faces. 





CHAPTER XII. 



ON THE NORTH DEVON COAST. 



TLFRACOMBE, Tuesday, June 22. In American 
-*■ eyes, English villages generally have the appear- 
ance of possessing a smaller population than the 
census reveals, whereas the towns frequently take on a 
more metropolitan aspect than would an American 
community of the same size. The former is accounted 
for by the extraordinary crowding, each cottage and 
alley swarming with humanity ; the latter by the fact 
that while the area of the place is not great, the 
better class of business buildings are for the most 
part solid and dignified, such as can be seen in few 
American towns of the same relative importance. 
Barnstaple, well built, with an agreeable air of steady- 
going prosperity, is one of these deceiving towns ; its 
business quarter, set down in America, would do 
credit to a city five times the size of this. There is 
little, however, to detain the tourist. The Taw valley 
has broadened here into a tidal marsh, the river being 
crossed by an interesting stone bridge of sixteen 
arches, which tradition ascribes to the thirteenth cen- 
tury. A quay of extensive proportions flanks the 
city's river-bank, and upon it is a handsome colon- 
15 



226 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

nade crowned by a statue of Queen Anne, from whose 
reign it dates. The church, which before the Refor- 
mation possessed numerous beautiful chantries, has 
now little to recommend it save a graceful spire. 
Barnstaple Harbor has been of importance for at least 
six or seven centuries, although it has lost something 
of its former prestige. At the time of our visit, the 
shiny blue banks, which at low tide mark the passage 
of the Taw through salt meadows to the sea, were 
undisturbed save by a few small coasting craft lying 
idly on their sides, waiting for a lift from the return- 
ing flood. 

This afternoon, leaving our machines and most of 
our other impedimenta at the Barnstaple inn, we came 
on by rail to Ilfracombe, a side trip of sixteen miles. 
The intervening country is hilly, and most of it ap- 
parently uninteresting. The roadways in this dry 
season are as dusty as they well can be, causing us to 
rejoice that we had not tried to wheel upon them. 
The downs are treeless as a rule, and their soil fairly 
cultivated. 

Ilfracombe is the most popular of the many North 
Devon seaside resorts. But here again we are 
ahead of the season ; and as we walked down into the 
town from the lofty railway station, the spick-and- 
span new " boarding establishments " lining the steep 
path had little red and yellow card-board signs in prac- 
tically every window, announcing that rooms were to 
be rented there. As for the hotels, they are legion ; 
and some of them are perched on the most com- 
manding of the craggy heights which almost surround 
the harbor, — offensively prominent in every view, 
thickly silhouetted against the dark- blue sea. 



On the North Devon Coast. 227 

After tea we had a quiet stroll up the winding Cap- 
stone Parade, from which there are delightful views 
of the picturesque little town below, and of the busy 
harbor, which is one of the safest on the Bristol coast, 
and the centre of a considerable herring fishery. 
Walking down to the port, past a curious old light- 
house, — formerly a chapel, — situated on Lantern 
Hill, we paused to watch a small party of tourists dis- 
embark from the Clovelly steamer, and then threaded 
our way among nets and kegs and miscellaneous 
marine stores piled upon the quay, on a tour of in- 
spection of the herring-boats which thickly dot the 
basin. 

A little knot of fisher-folk in front of a row of queer 
old buildings, whose open timber-work is fast falling 
into decay, attracted our attention. Two stout pic- 
turesque dames, with blue jean skirts scarcely below 
their knees, kerchiefs tied loosely at neck, and red 
shawls crossed over their breasts, were emerging from 
the group, each with a huge feather-bed in her arms, 
which she walked off with as though it were a pillow. 
Drawing near, a dozen or less fishermen, in their 
jaunty Jersey blouses, with courteous silence, drew 
aside to make room for us in the circle ; and we 
found that The Golden Lion Inn and its few effects 
were being sold under the hammer, by a queer little 
dried-up auctioneer, with metallic voice and frozen 
smile. Near him, languidly leaning against a fish- 
barrel, was a great, misshapen, greasy fellow, hairy 
and louty, dressed in a shiny suit that had once been 
black; on his head an old straw hat bore a white 
band, on which was rudely printed the words, " Public 
Crier." 



228 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

The woman who kept the toll-gate on the pier stood 
by our side, — a bright-eyed, buxom woman of mid- 
dle age, who made running comments on the scene, 
apparently from the standpoint of a social position 
which in her opinion was a degree above these rude 
toilers of the sea. She said that the old woman who 
had carried on the inn lately died ; her sister was 
therefore realizing on the estate, and the house was 
to be torn down. 

" How old is the inn? " I asked. 

" Hawful ol', sir ! Hi should say it be long afore 
my granna's time." 

" Two hundred years ? " 

" Oh, ay, sir ! han more 'n thet, sir ! Hunnerds 
o' year ol', — shameful ol', sir ! Hi say, shameful 
ol' ! " 

"Why shamefully old?" 

"Well, sir," — puzzled, apparently, at being asked 
for a reason, — " Hi don' know, sir ; but it teks a heap 
all the time to be a-keepin' hup o' thim old uns, sir ; 
an' this un 's got beyon' it, sir ! " 

The auctioneer was a domineering fellow, and 
doubtless understood his audience well. He would 
allow no untying of parcels of herring-nets or other 
property, for purposes of inspection. " Tek ut or leave 
ut ! " was his cry, when some fisher, man or wife, dis- 
played too much curiosity, and then he would add in 
a supplicating note, nodding towards the scrawny old 
sister in the doorway, " Giv the ol' 'oman a chance, 
folks, woan't yous?" The nets went for twenty-five 
and thirty-five cents each. Two earthenware herring- 
pickling jars, of good classical shape, and large enough 
to have held one of the forty thieves in the " Arabian 



On the North Devon Coast. 229 

Nights " tale, went for a dollar the pair. This sacrifice 

of a good thing made W wish we had not forsworn 

purchases of bric-a-brac upon this wheeling tour ; as 
it was, it was an effort to keep from bidding on what 
would have been an acquisition in any American hall- 
way. The pier-woman, from her long study of tourist 
weaknesses, understood their value, and whispered to 
us, " My ! but many a leddy as paints, m'am, 'ud 
geev anythin' for them pair, to decorate wi' ! " 

Wandering at will through the old inn, now almost 
stripped of its belongings, we found many quaint 
nooks, and a marvellous antique brick oven built into 
the wall. Two quaint settles in the tap- room were 
quite to our fancy, but I suppose they went for their 
value in kindling-wood. A beautiful specimen of a 
" grandfather's clock," on the stairs landing, caused 

us to suspend the rules ; and W hastened down 

to the crabbed sister to ask if this could not at once 
be placed on the auctioneer's stand. But it had been 
sold for four dollars to a curiosity-dealer just before 
our arrival, and was not in the market ; the dealer will 
want fifty dollars for it at least, and in America a hun- 
dred and fifty could not buy it. The opportunity of 

a lifetime had been missed, and W sadly hurried 

me away out of further temptation. 

Returning through the narrow streets of the fishing 
town, — a well-defined neighborhood distinct from the 
tourist quarters, — we were again at the base of Cap- 
stone, and surprised to see how many were gathered 
in the concert pavilion, on the beach, and along the 
parade, when it had seemed from the window-tickets 
as if nearly every room in the place was vacant. 

There is an agreeable variety of entertainment to- 



230 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

night. An Italian band, with a tenor vocalist, hold 
forth in the pavilion. " Sequah, the American Doc- 
tor," — a long-haired, brazen-faced quack, in a buck- 
skin suit and a sombrero, — parades the streets with 
a cow-boy brass band perched in a gilded circus 
chariot, stopping now and then to harangue the 
people (who seem to take him seriously) and gather 
in shoals of shekels, in exchange for a nostrum sup- 
posed to cure rheumatism or whatever else ails the 
purchaser. We have heard of this fellow elsewhere, 
— in fact, it is said there is a stock company, " Se- 
quah, Limited," which has some half-dozen Sequahs 
in the field, operating in as many European countries 
this summer, and all of them coining fortunes for the 
shareholders. " The American doctor " part of it is 
what makes me indignant, for two thirds of the people 
we have heard speak of him honestly believe he is a 
fair type of our medical men. Upon the beach, the 
Salvation Army and Mr. Punch are bidding for popu- 
lar attention, in lively opposition. From our chamber, 
as I write, it is difficult to say which is getting the best 
of it out there, — the shrill rattle of the puppet police- 
man, or the tambourine of the little black- eyed Sal- 
vation lass who sold us the " War Cry," which W 

is reading by my side. 

Ilfracombe, Wednesday, 2$th. The Lynton coach 
picked us up at our hotel this morning at nine o'clock. 
We were fortunate in having a rather better company 
than one is apt to fall in with on domestic touring 
routes, — a self-satisfied though rather green young 
clergyman of the Establishment, with his supercilious 
but pretty wife, and her fault-finding mamma ; two pleas- 
ant young photographic amateurs, laden with plates for 



On the North Devon Coast. 231 

marine views, who, having knocked about a bit in 
their search for the picturesque, talked well of their 
experiences ; the other two or three were non-com- 
municative people of the lower middle class, who 
seemed to stand in awe of the parson. The driver 
was one of those cheap professional wits, who deem 
it necessary forever to be acting the part of buffoons, 
in order to keep up their reputation. His quips and 
puns and sallies rolled out in a constant stream, in 
season and out, as though he were wound up for the 
journey, and under contract to evolve a specified 
number of witticisms en route. Whenever the jocular 
Jehu chanced to be silent, the parson essayed to guy 
the guard, — a rough but good-natured lad, who early 
let us understand that his " only wages were what 
the passengers chose to give him ; " the boy was quite 
equal to the occasion, and almost invariably turned 
the laugh on his tormentor, who, however, seemed too 
obtuse to understand that he was being beaten at his 
own game. 

The seventeen miles from Ilfracombe to Lynton 
embraces some of the finest scenery in western Eng- 
land. For about four miles out the coach- road winds 
along a bench cut in the steep cliffs, which often rise 
sheer from the sea ; and there are grand views, chang- 
ing at every turn, of the blue waters of Bristol Chan- 
nel and the dark, rugged outlines of the deeply 
dentated coast of Devon. Here and there ravines 
(locally " combes ") run far back into the country, 
each of them bearing a sturdy little stream in its 
bosom, and generally crowded with luxuriant vege- 
tation. At the long, straggling village of Combe 
Martin, — deep down between bald hills in which 



232 Oar Cycling Tour in England. 

silver was mined in Elizabeth's day, — we leave the 
coast and course inward for a mile or so, alternately 
climbing steep hills, at the base of which the gentle- 
men dismount to ease the load, and on the other side 
descending at a mad gallop on three wheels, the 
fourth being blocked with an iron shoe manipulated by 
the agile guard. This is the northern edge of Exmoor, 
ever to be famous as the country of " Lorna Doone." 
The moorland, heather-clad, almost treeless, and with 
comparatively slight cultivation, stretches in billows 
southward as far as the eye can reach, — a noble ex- 
panse for the sportsman, and still filled with possi- 
bilities of dire adventure to the luckless traveller who 
misses his path amid wintry storms. 

Lynton, our coach-journey's end, is a pretty little 
village at the top of a sea-clirT four hundred feet high. 
The air is bracing up here, and the marine view 
superb. But of more especial interest is Lynmouth, 
nestled at the base of the height, down by the beach, 
where two little torrents join forces before plunging 
through the rocky village street into the sea. It is no 
wonder that artists congregate in squads at Lynmouth ; 
it abounds in pretty bits, and no view of it is without 
charm. Nothing here is oftener depicted than the old 
tumble-down pier, beyond which the village, with its 
background of clirT and forested ravine, with the zig- 
zag roadway up to Lynton chiselled from the solid 
rock, presents a most exquisite picture. Upon this 
pier, with an antiquated inn hard by, and the white 
station of the coast guard, is a small tower with a 
curious battlement, of which the artists never tire. A 
guardsman, idly scanning the peaceful channel with his 
glass, told us that the picturesque tower was formerly 



On the North Devon Coast. 233 

a sea-water tank for the neighboring fishermen's cot- 
tages. Fifty years ago a gentleman ornamented it 
with two red-brick balconies, giving it a distant re- 
semblance to a ruin on the Rhine. Since then the 
decorated tank has been sketched, painted, and pho- 
tographed thousands of times, yet few know its 
history. The guardsman, a modest young fellow in 
his natty blue blouse, talked freely enough of his life, 
when once started, but with becoming modesty. His 
story of the experiences of the Lynmouth patrol, one 
stormy night last winter, was thrilling enough for a 
chapter in a marine novel. A wreck occurred in a 
fierce snowstorm down the coast a few miles, and the 
guardsmen started out over the cliffs to get in range 
for throwing the life-line. Though in summer know- 
ing every stone on the rocky path, from their daily 
patrolling, in the violence of the storm they lost their 
way, and wandered aimlessly about nearly all night, 
finally bringing up, famished and frost-bitten, at 
a farmer's cottage, miles away from their destina- 
tion. Fortunately the men on the stranded vessel 
managed to get ashore themselves, through the ter- 
rible surf, and were at the station before the guards 
returned. 

After paying homage to the North Walk, with its 
widespread view of the sail-specked channel, and to 
the Valley of the Rocks, one of the wildest and most 
desolate of scenes, — it is graphically described in 
" Lorna Doone," — we lunched at the hotel, and 
later mounted our coach for the home run, for which 
a gentle shower had meanwhile laid the dust. The 
pugnacious parson was now disposed to be rudely 
critical of America. As we walked uphill together, 



234 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

near Panacombe, he said he thought he might get 
to feel at home in Australia, India, or the Cape, 
should fortune turn his steps thither ; but in America 
he knew he should be " frightfully homesick, you 
know." 

Wherein did he suppose lay the difference, — " the 
absence of the queen's colors " ? 

" Oh, no ! you know ; not that at all, you know ! 
But the language, don't you know? The language ! " 

" I fancy you would find a good many people talk- 
ing English fairly well over there," I replied en- 
couragingly. 

" But such beastly English, don't you know ? Tell 
me, sir, why it is you Americans don't all talk alike. 
Some of you chew up your words so, and others have 
such a horrid twang, and such mannerisms, you know ! 
Learned it from the Indians, I suppose. Really, it 's 
most exasperating, this sort of thing, you know ! Why 
can't you all talk alike? There would be some living 
with you then." 

" Can you tell me why Englishmen don't all talk 
alike, — why the Hampshireman can with difficulty 
understand the Devonian ; why the Cockney is so far 
away in his dialect from the North Countryman ? Did 
you never realize that the Queen's English is nowhere 
so badly mauled as in some parts of England, and 
that there are even English gentlemen who fairly load 
their speech with mannerisms?" 

He made no reply to this, but stared at me with 
some surprise, and trudged on silently till we mounted 
again. There was a pretty scene as we rattled 
through Combe Martin at a swinging trot. A score 
or more of barefooted children ran alongside the 



On the North Devon Coast. 235 

coach, pelting us with rude bouquets of roses and 
honeysuckles, and screaming all the time a sing-song 
greeting, which not even the parson could compre- 
hend, until the guard interpreted it thus : — 

" Scramble fo' yo' ha'p'nce, zur ! 
Scramble fo' yo' ha'p'nce, zur ! 
Scramble ! Scramble ! " 

And the way they scrambled for the pennies and 
half-pence, when once their plea was made under- 
standable, was a sight indeed. Over and over they 
rolled, boys and girls, down in the dust and among 
the roadside weeds, regardless of rents and bruises, 
and never satisfied, until at last the driver snapped 
his long whip, the leaders jumped forward with a snort, 
another volley of dusty bouquets came flying in our 
faces, and we rapidly pulled out from the shouting, 
laughing Exmoor urchins. 

Barnstaple, Thursday, z^th. At Ilfracombe this 
morning we took an excursion steamer for Clovelly. 
Our seventy fellow-passengers appeared in the main to 
be small tradespeople out for a holiday ; they ate sand- 
wiches most of the time, talked shop, and discussed 
the probabilities of sea-sickness. Fortunately the sea 
was smooth, although several sharp showers tested oui 
mackintoshes, and drove every one not thus provided 
to the stuffy cabin. 

The wrinkled shores of Bideford Bay, as we steam 
closely by, present a remarkable panorama of rugged 
cliffs, richly varied in form and color. The reddish 
rocks, patched with gray and green lichens, have fan- 
tastic sky-lines carved by ages of beating storms ; 
ample caves are washed deep in their bases by the 



236 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

waves ; bold and sombre forelands here and there pro- 
ject into the deep ; and from outlying reefs nestling 
water-fowl rise in clouds at the whistle's shriek. 

Clovelly is a fishing village nestled in a steep, slen- 
der, and winding combe. From the narrow beach of 
rocks, protected by a ponderous L-shaped pier, form- 
ing a snug harbor for a considerable fleet of black- 
hulled herring-trawlers, the one street ascends in a 
zigzag stair not over a rod wide, for full half a mile, 
to the summit of the wooded plateau above. The 
sides of the ravine are so abrupt that the stone cabins 
and cottages flanking this staircase street have back 
yards often higher than their chimney-tops. From 
the sea, the houses appear to be clambering up the 
cliffside on each other's shoulders, their whitewashed 
walls and bright green blinds contrasting strangely 
with the dark background of forest and storm-scathed 
rock. Except upon the beach, where one or two 
horses are engaged in pulling up boats and hauling 
loads of seaweed, donkeys only are employed in 
Clovelly, and no wheeled vehicles have ever been 
known upon its flight of stairs. Visitors coming by 
steamer are taken ashore in small boats, as we were, 
and obliged to climb up, while ruddy fishermen in 
blue Jersey blouses earn a few pence as porters from 
those bringing baggage. Heavy packages are slung 
upon donkeys' backs, or hauled up on hand-sledges. 
Those arriving by coach or carriage dismount at the 
cliff-top, where the post-house is kept, and descend to 
the town by the same avenue of rugged steps, similarly 
aided, if need be, by donkeys and porters. 

Clovelly has the reputation, well based, I think, of 
being the quaintest and loveliest village in all Devon. 



On the North Devon Coast. 237 

It is fairly stormed by artists all summer long. Every 
corner and doorway, every stretch of the climbing 
street, and vista of huddled stone cottages, has been 
sketched and painted at least scores of times ; every 
inhabitant, man, woman, and child, has done duty as a 
model, — place and people are continually on exhibi- 
tion. At the Royal Academy show in London, we 
had seen numerous bits of Clovelly, and yet none of 
them are Clovelly itself, and will surely disappoint us 
when we see them again at Burlington House, now 
that we have been on the ground. Clovelly is a 
picture, from one end to the other ; a panorama pos- 
sibly might do it justice ; it cannot be taken piece- 
meal. It is for this reason the photographers despair, 
for while they take charming pictures of the place, 
none of them are quite satisfying to one who has been 
there. 

After lunch at The New Inn, — a veritable curiosity- 
shop, — halfway up the village, we ascend to the top 
of the angling street, turning around every now and 
then to drink in the marvellous view : dark, serrated 
cliffs up and down the coast, with breakers softly lap- 
ping at their bases ; about us the forested sides of 
Clovelly combe ; and over there to the right, the green 
masses of the woods of Clovelly Court, the home of 
the manor lord ; below, the quaint, white village roll- 
ing down in terraces to the deep blue waters of Bristol 
Channel, which, stretching far beyond, flash prettily 
in the sunlight, while on the distant horizon the 
rugged shores of South Wales are dimly visible. 
Lundy Island lies out to the left, a pile of bluish 
rock seventeen miles away, apparently easy of access, 
but in reality difficult to reach in any but the calmest 



238 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

weather ; the farmer and his half-dozen men, who are 
at home on Lundy, lead a life as isolated and storm - 
tossed as any to be found on the outlying isles of 
Britain. 

We had a delightful dash over the Hobby Drive, a 
woodland avenue three miles in length along the clirT- 
tops, with sylvan and marine views charmingly inter- 
mingled, and then returned to the village to explore 
the " back stairs," and hobnob with the shrewd 
fisher-folk, — who, in these days, cast their nets for 
herrings only when tourist fishing is slack. There 
are somewhat over a hundred houses in Clovelly, and 
a population of eight hundred ; the importance of 
the sight-seeing element may be appreciated when 
it is known that upon some fine summer days there 
are as many as a thousand visitors wearily dragging 
themselves up and down the half-mile staircase, and 
half the cottages in town are filled with weekly lodg- 
ers. The hotel rate is about two and a half dollars a 
day ; and at the cottages, an exceedingly simple fare 
and service for somewhat less, — " with a trifle extra 
for the waiter, sir, if you like, when you leave." 

At a quarter past five we ascended once more to 
the cliff- top, and took coach for Bideford, — a pleas- 
ant rustic trip, though tame enough when compared 
with our coaching tour of yesterday. Our fellow-trav- 
ellers this time were specimens of the " 'Arry " class, 
— with a propensity to patronize the inns en route. 
From "the little white town of Bideford," lovingly 
known to readers of " Westward Ho ! " a short rail- 
way journey brought us back to Barnstaple and our 
wheels after an enjoyable diversion. 







CHAPTER XIII. 

SOMERSET, AND THE VALLEY OF THE WYE. 

(^ 'LASTONBURY, Somerset, Friday, June 26. 
^* We had spent more time on the coast of 
North Devon than we had originally allowed our- 
selves, and to make it up, took the 11.45 train from 
Barnstaple this morning, reaching here by the way of 
Taunton and Highbridge at half-past five this even- 
ing, — a roundabout trip, with several long waits at 
junctions ; except on the great trunk lines you cannot 
go far in England by rail without such. 

On our way we traversed Sedgemoor and Brue 
Level, — great, flat, treeless expanses, once hopeless 
swamps, but now reclaimed by the drainage ditches 
which checker the country on every hand. There 
are few villages, but the plains are dotted over with 
grazing cattle and sheep, and to the southeastward 
are bounded by low ranges of hills, — between out- 
lying spurs of one of which, the Polden Hills, lies 
King's Sedge Moor, where, a hundred and six years 
ago, was fought the last battle on English soil. 



240 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

Upon the Brue Level, peat-cutting is an important 
industry, having its centre at Ashcot Station. The 
deposit varies from three to ten feet in depth, being 
underlaid by water and a clayey subsoil. It is sliced 
off down to the clay as you would cut cheese, and 
the peat — locally, "turf" — cut up into blocks about 
the size of a building brick. These blocks are piled, 
cob-house fashion, to dry in the sun ; and in locali- 
ties along the old Brue canal these singular-looking 
black piles, often a dozen feet in height, are thickly 
strewn about as far as the eye can see. Ordinary 
blocks of dry turf retail in Glastonbury for twelve 
cents per hundred ; they emit a fierce heat, and are 
used chiefly for getting up a quick fire to be followed 
by coals. As a regular fuel it would be expensive at 
this price. At Ashcot a company is engaged in 
making from them a patent kindling, which is said 
to be popular. A strip of land denuded of its peat 
presents a most melancholy appearance ; the yellow 
clay, diapered with little lakes, appears to have lost all 
capacity for usefulness. Occasionally such bare spots 
are filled in with earth from the neighboring hills; 
but I believe that the rule is to let Nature work out 
the salvation of the despoiled tract. We are in- 
formed that in this district the decomposition of 
ferns, heath, and other vegetables will result in 
twenty years in the replacement of the peat-bed. 

Glastonbury, on the eastern edge of Sedgemoor, is 
one of the most ancient of English towns. When all 
about was swamp, this was the Isle of Avalon. Accord- 
ing to monkish annals, Saint Joseph of Arimathsea, 
who buried the body of Christ, was sent by Philip of 
Gaul to Christianize Britain, and built here the first 



Somerset, and the Valley of the Wye. 241 

Glastonbury Abbey of wattles and timber ; another of 
stone succeeded it, to be improved in turn by Saint 
Patrick, Saint David, and King Ina of the West Sax- 
ons, — later to be replaced by the splendid Norman 
edifice whose ruins delight us to-day. Beneath the 
floors of this abbey the fabled King Arthur and 
Queen Guinevere are reputed to have been buried, 
together with a long line of veritable monarchs and 
prelates whose monuments have long since vanished. 
From the sixth century the abbey's record is com- 
plete, and it was even then an ancient foundation. 
Freeman says it is " the one great institution which 
bore up untouched through the storm of English 
conquest, the one great tie which binds our race 
to the race which went before us, and which binds 
the church of the last thirteen hundred years to the 
earlier days of Christianity in Britain." 

Glastonbury is crowded with antiquities, — churches, 
almshouses, inns, and the secular buildings of the 
abbey, — and is altogether the most interesting old 
town we have yet quartered in. A short walk before 
dinner, and a long twilight walk after, took us into 
nearly every quarter. In the course of our ramble 
we stumbled by accident upon an old almshouse con- 
nected with a quaint little fifteenth-century chapel, 
hidden from the view of the street behind a grocery 
store. The chapel care-taker is an old gossip who 
lives with her husband in one of the eleven cottages 
in the long double row. There was little of interest 
within the sanctuary, save the thick walls with oaken 
timbers projecting, and a curiously panelled window. 
Better worth attention was the cicerone's cell, into 
which she invited us, — a little room ten feet square, 
16 



242 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

with furniture of the style of Queen Anne, protruding 
beams, and high latticed windows. Above was the 
bed-chamber of this ancient couple, reached by a 
staircase as steep as a ladder. The charity has an 
old foundation, — for men only, though they may 
bring their wives ; the former may stay here till 
death, with house and garden rent free, but when 
widowed, the women must go out into the world 
to shift for themselves. Unlike most almshouses, 
there is here given neither money nor food ; this 
failure to provide fully for the inmates seemed, in 
the mind of our hostess, a neglect almost criminal, 
and the founder's ears would have tingled had he 
been present in spirit to listen to the estimate placed 
on his beneficence. Not but what she herself man- 
aged somehow, for now and then a tourist hunted 
her up fQr the chapel key, and that meant a six- 
pence ; as for the others, the Lord only knew how 
they made both ends meet — honestly. 

As we bade our friend good-night, in the thicken- 
ing dusk, two other heads protruded over half-doors, 
down the almshouse alley, and two shrill female voices 
bade us come and see their cottages as well, which 
were much better than the one we had been in; 
sure, that was as new as could be, and theirs were 
" the h'only real ol' cottages o' t' h' Abbey times ! " 
Glastonbury is fully awake to the mercantile value of 
being a veritable antique ; even her paupers contest 
for the honor of living in the oldest cell. 

Wells, Saturday, 27/A. The George Inn, at Glas- 
tonbury, is of the fifteenth century, and originally 
served as a hospital for the entertainment of pil- 
grims to Saint Joseph's shrine. In its palmy days, the 



Somerset, a?id the Valley of the Wye. 243 

abbey abounded in holy relics, and attracted crowds 
of devotees from all quarters of the land. The Red 
Lion, near by, which was formerly the great gate of 
the abbey, is no mean attraction. The fine old 
church of St. John the Baptist, with its Perpen- 
dicular tower, and the fourteenth-century kitchen 
of the abbey, a massive structure with four fire- 
places, early claimed our attention this morning. 
The crowning glory of Glastonbury, however, is the 
graceful ivy-grown ruin of the abbey church. Before 
it was dismantled by Henry VIII., this structure 
must have been one of the loveliest works of Saxon- 
Norman architecture in all Britain, a marvel of airy 
elegance. Streets full of cottages and chapels have 
been built from the fallen stones of the abbey, yet 
enough remains standing of the richly sculptured pile 
to impress the beholder with awe and admiration. 

At twelve o'clock we set out on our wheels from 
Glastonbury for the cathadral city of Wells, six miles 
to the northeast. Having purchased and had shipped 
home some of the local pottery, the works interested 
us, three quarters of a mile out. The men were at 
dinner ; but the foreman good-naturedly exhibited the 
various processes of vase, tile, and machine-brick 
making. 

A shower had set in meanwhile, but we found 
good shelter beneath a wayside row of willow trees, 
a half-mile beyond, and' there being nothing else to 
occupy us, did what Englishmen would have done 
under similar circumstances, — lunched. Our light 
repast was nearly over when two tramps appeared 
and sought a dry spot hard by. One of them, a 
bulky, battered fellow, with a jovial countenance, 



244 O ur Cycling Tour in England. 

though lacking one eye, opened the conversation 
with remarks upon the weather, and found me in 
a complacent mood. 

"Ah h'ain't from these parts, sir," he replied, 
when I questioned him as to his home ; and then, 
inquiringly, " Ah think Ah be from your parts, sir, — 
down below." I thought so too, I said. 

At this, his companion, a cadaverous ragamuffin, 
put in a whining plea for " coppers for drinks," as 
they had had neither food nor drink to-day. The 
drinks, I assured them, they would be best without, 
but they might have the remains of our lunch. This 
apparently was pleasing news ; and while we sat on 
the bank in our mackintoshes, and the rain pattered 
about us, the pedestrians stood and chatted and 
munched their cake and cheese a few feet away. 
They were seeking for work, said he of the single 
eye ; but there was nothing doing at haying so long 
as it rained, and " t' glass, missus, is set awfu' bad, 
and woe be to us this comin' week, an' t' weather 
wet ! " A poor place was Glastonbury, where they 
were bound, — no workhouse there. But workhouse 
rules are very unfair, wherever they be. A man is 
given a free night, but after breakfast they set him at 
a hard task, sawing wood or breaking stone, and he 
is not released till eleven of the morning, when the 
day is half gone, and all chance for getting work 
gone with it ; and then he ' must move on to the 
next parish. The workhouse plan was discouraging 
to a deserving poor man, and no mistake. They 
both had wives and families depending on them, but 
there was no chance ever to get ahead. 

The rain had ceased for a time, and we ourselves 



Somerset, and the Valley of the Wye. ,245 

prepared to move on, again declining to contribute 
" coppers," but not failing to receive the blessings 
of our fellow-wayfarers, who now bent their steps 
towards Glastonbury. Frequently, as we pass through 
the country, we see notices displayed, warning the 
public against giving money to wandering beggars, 
as all needy cases will be promptly attended to by 
district-relief committees, who issue tickets to men- 
dicants,, after the fashion of some of our American 
organized charities. In the Isle of Wight, the public 
is similarly warned against " German bands and other 
vagrants," — a classification which might perhaps be 
obnoxious to Emperor William, whom the royal fam- 
ily, are just now preparing to entertain sumptuously. 
We hear a great deal in America about a system of 
assisted emigration, by which British paupers are 
given a free ocean trip by her Majesty's govern- 
ment, and unloaded on our shores; yet I saw to- 
night in the Wells post-office a royal proclamation, 
warning intending emigrants against going to the Ar- 
gentine Republic, because they would be " doomed 
to disappointment " if they went out hoping to better 
their condition there ; this does not look like a 
desire to assist emigration. 

We were no sooner in the saddle than skurrying 
clouds once more veiled the heavens, and emptied 
upon us a drenching storm. There was every pros- 
pect now that it had come to stay, so buttoning up 
our mackintoshes and getting the luggage-carriers 
well tucked in under their rubber wraps, we set out 
to brave the elements. Luckily the wind was astern, 
and we rode on smartly over a shining road, across 
the wide plain of East Sedgemoor, seeing little 



246 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

through the driving mist beyond occasional farmsteads, 
cattle cowering under willow-clumps, and now and 
then a wayside public with cart-horses steaming and 
fretting without, while their drivers stood in the 
doorway with pipe and mug, looking after us with 
evident amazement. 

We were dismounting at The Star Inn in Wells 
(forty- six hundred inhabitants) just as the cathedral 
clock struck two, none the worse for our long pull in 
the rain, and enthusiastic over the quality of English 
mackintoshes, which had been severely tested. There 
were but slight showers thereafter ; and towards even- 
ing the sky cleared, verdant Wells now looking its 
prettiest, scoured and polished by the deluge. The 
cathedral is accounted by many authorities as the 
finest on the island ; certainly, the entire cluster of 
ecclesiastical buildings — the cathedral itself, the 
Episcopal palace, the deanery, the picturesque vicar's 
close, the chapter- house, and the ponderous gates — 
impressed us more profoundly than has any other 
ecclesiastical group in England. As for the west 
facade of the fifteenth century, with its elaborate 
decorations and its six hundred sculptured figures, it 
is far more attractive than I had imagined it could 
be, from published descriptions ; yet so great is the 
multitude of details, the eye cannot grasp the won- 
drous beauty of each. We have found our appre- 
ciation greatly heightened by examining a notable 
collection of exquisite pictures of each of the six 
hundred figures, taken by a local photographer, who 
used as his tripod the scaffolding of the artists 
engaged in their restoration a few years ago. 

Wells is no such nest of antiquities as Canterbury 






Somerset, mid the Valley of the Wye. 247 

or Exeter. The interest of the tourist centres in the 
cathedral and its adjuncts; yet we should advise 
others to do as we did, — ascend Tor Hill by a pretty 
walk leading up through a tangled wood, for the sake 
of the fine view of the Mendip Hills and the flat 
expanse of Brue Level; and visit, too, the bishop's 
curious tithe-barn down by the shady river-side, — 
a rude stone shell six hundred years old, doubtless 
intended for defence in case of need, and now used 
for flower-shows, militia meetings, and public gather- 
ings in general. Just without the old barn are the 
people's recreation-grounds ; and out there in the 
twilight are at this hour gathered hundreds, old and 
young, — some playing at quoits, cricket, croquet, 
and tennis, others sitting on the benches, smoking 
and gossiping in the fading day, still others strolling 
arm in arm, as lovers will, along the arbored paths 
which skirt the swishing stream. 

Bath, Monday, 29///. After a quiet Sunday in 
Wells, with services in and rambles about the old 
cathedral, we started this noon for Bath, " twenty 
miles away." There had been heavy rains along 
our route, making the road sticky in places ; and al- 
though the sun now and then asserted itself through 
breaks in the clouds, the storm was evidently not 
yet over. 

The first three miles out of Wells, to the straggling 
hillside hamlet of West Horrington, were mainly up- 
grade. But our walking was rewarded with compre- 
hensive backward views of Brue Level, hereabout 
lai 1 out in fine parks, glades and woodland pleasantly 
intermingling ; the beautiful Mendip Hills, which we 
are climbing, are famous for their caverns and their 



248 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

ancient lead mines, as well as being an early seat of 
Roman occupation ; far off across the plain to our 
rear are Polden Hills, beyond which lies the battle- 
field of Sedgemoor. Prominent in the landscape is 
the sharp sky-line of Glastonbury Tor, whereon Whit- 
ing, the last abbot of Glastonbury and the friend of 
Wolsey, was hanged and quartered for bidding defi- 
ance to Henry VIII. 

As we sat on the slope of Stoberry Hill, and 
lunched beneath a hedge, with Wells still at our feet, 
half buried amid its trees, groups of peasant women 
passed on their way home from market, for this is a 
trade half-holiday. Their dialect is strong, and their 
conversation coarse. They rudely stared at us, mak- 
ing remarks among themselves, and we thought them 
the most ill-mannered laboring folk we had yet met 
in England. Children were among them, like their 
mothers, carrying bundles on their heads and shoul- 
ders. One rude Amazon, who had passed us in a 
gossiping crowd, dropped her burden at the top of 
the declivity and came back at a swinging gait, shout- 
ing fiercely to two little ones who were struggling up 
at a snailish pace: "Git 'long wi' ye's, woan't ye's? 
Ah could 'a' bin to Horrin't'n by thees, on'y for thee 
slow covies ! " And she boxed their ears and drove 
them on ahead of her at the point of her bayonet 
tongue. 

Rain began softly falling now ; and as we and the 
machines were well under cover beneath the arching 
hawthorn of a neglected hedge, we took out a batch 
of American newspapers that had reached us in the 
morning mail, and were at once in spirit four thou- 
sand miles away from the leaky roof of Somerset. 



Somerset, and the Valley of the Wye. 249 

To none do the home journals seem so newsy as to 
the traveller far from his domestic hearth. 

" Morn'n', sir ! We 're met agin ! " And look- 
ing up, there stood before us, twirling his hat in his 
hands, the communicative one-eyed tramp who had 
shared with us our Saturday lunch near Glastonbury. 
He had lost a promised job there, he said, because 
of the rain. Glastonbury had no almshouse, anyway ; 
and it 's never stay there he would, so long as there 
was a sleeping-place elsewhere. He had tried to 
work the Glastonbury parson for his railway fare, but 
the parson would n't nibble, more 's the pity ; and 
so he had turned round and was tramping back to 
Bath, where he hoped to find a job that would earn 
him his night's lodgings. Perhaps our tone towards 
him was less sympathetic than on Saturday, for after 
mumbling something about the unkindness of man to 
his fellow-creatures, he left us hurriedly and trudged 

on ahead ; W suggested that possibly he feared 

we were about to give him some more of that indi- 
gestible Glastonbury cake. 

At the brow of the hill we remounted, and soon 
passed our friend of the road, who looked wistfully 
after us. The ridgeway which we now followed was 
sometimes hemmed in by the high stone walls of 
prosperous-looking estates, with flanking rows of elms 
interlacing their branches overhead. Again, there 
were miles of tall, dense hedges, through whose gates 
we had glimpses of fertile fields and sheep-sprinkled 
pastures beyond. Sometimes low walls of stone alone 
bounded the well-macadamed street, and then pleas- 
ing vistas over wide expanses met our uninterrupted 
sight, — parish churches lifting their gray spires above 



250 Our Cycling Tour' in England. 

the trees, the smoke of laborers' cottages lazily seek- 
ing union with the low- hanging clouds, rude hamlets 
sprinkling the country-side, the bucolic arts in prac- 
tice everywhere ; a quiet, earnest, rustic life in prog- 
ress here, just as it progressed a half-century ago or 
more, feeling none of that feverish unrest which turns 
the outer world topsy-turvy, making us ashamed to 
do things in the way our fathers did them. 

Near Emborough hamlet there was a pretty sight, 
— an elm-shaded brook down in a wayside dingle, 
with laughing children paddling about over the moss- 
grown pebbles which line the stream ; and just above, 
undisturbed by the boisterous play, ducks sailing 
around in a weedy pool caused by a dam of the 
youngsters' making. An open wagon dashed by, 
filled with young fellows from Wells, one of whom 
served as guard and waked the echoes with a horn, — 
half-holiday festivities. Later we passed the merry- 
makers in the neighborhood of Chilcompton, refresh- 
ing themselves at a public-house, while the driver was 
sponging the mouths of his horses. 

A smart little village is Chilcompton, as it lies partly 
in a pretty valley below us to the left, and partly 
climbing a hillside beyond. An old church, with one 
of those Perpendicular towers with which we are be- 
coming so familiar, stands dark and solemn in the 
midst of the cottage roofs ; not three quarters of a 
mile away to the right, is the ancient church of Kil- 
mersdon, — our roadway parts the neighboring par- 
ishes. We stopped at the summit of an incline to 
contemplate at leisure the vale of Chilcompton. Each 
hue and line was softened in this gray atmosphere ; 
there was a delicate charm about it all, hill and val- 



Somerset ', and the Valley of the Wye. 251 

ley, cottages and verdure, that brought to us a fresh- 
ness of pleasure quite unspeakable. It was a scene 
to sit and dream over the livelong day. 

While we sat there musing on a low stone wall, the 
Wells contingent passed with a flourish of trumpets, 
freshly wet. Soon appeared a stone mason in his 
suit of white duck, a basket of tools slung over his 
shoulder. I never knew an English rural workman 
who was not even too willing to stop and chat ; and 
so I asked him the name of the town for the sake 
of opening a conversation. With great deliberation 
he came to us and sat on the wall near by, with 
many a rheumatic grunt at the stooping, before he 
found tongue for reply. He was a stout, weather- 
beaten old man, with evidences of dissipation, as 
with so many of his class in this island. His wages 
were equal to a dollar a day, he said. In Wales, he 
had seen, by a ticket nailed up in the public, they 
were advertising for men at a dollar and sixty cents. 

Then why did n't he go? It was n't far off. Well, 
he did n't like to leave his family ; then again, he 
would have to pay for his board, and also support 
his folks at home, — it was like keeping up two 
houses. He and his " oF 'oman" could have a cup 
of tea each for the same money it would cost for one. 
Last winter, during the heavy " snai " (snow), he had 
lost eleven weeks' work. This ran him into debt for 
supplies, so that he owed a man ten dollars, which he 
could n't pay up. Thereupon his creditor had him 
go to jail for nine days, on plea of fraudulently trying 
to evade payment ; there were twenty-six other work- 
men in jail at the same time, and all because of the 
"snai." To be sure, it was comfortable enough in 



252 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

jail, and right warm ; 't would do very well for a 
single man, that sort of thing, but a married man 
preferred to be with his family. While he was in jail, 
the "oP 'oman " had to be earning some, though not 
enough could she get for two, so they ran more and 
more into debt. The " pais'n " (parson) had told 
him the imprisonment cancelled the debt; but he 
himself did n't know. Anyway, he had n't heard any 
more about it since, and had n't troubled himself to 
find out. 

I asked him a good deal about the public-houses, 
concerning which he appeared to be well versed. 
The public in Chilcompton parish, which we had 
just passed, was closed at ten each night by popular 
vote ; but that of Kilmersdon, just across the road 
from the other, was open till eleven. On Sunday, 
the publics are, by general statute, open to all callers, 
from half-past twelve to half-past two in the after- 
noon, and also from six to ten in the evening. At 
other times inns can furnish drink to their guests, 
and to all travellers who have come to them from 
a distance of over three miles. He himself knew 
one inn-keeper who would sell to nobody on Sunday, 
under any pretext. He did n't know the reason for 
it ■ it was " a queer doin's, this ! " I suggested that 
the man was religiously inclined, whereat our friend 
laughed heartily in his wheezy way, saying he doubted 
there being much religion among inn-keepers. 

W told him that we always found a Bible in 

the bedrooms of the inns, wherever we stopped. 

" Ay, m'am ; an' for thet, ye '11 find a Bible, 
Prayer-Book, and hymn-book, in the cells of iv'ry 
jail too ! " and he chuckled at his conceit. 



Somerset, and the Valley of the Wye. 253 

He lost a good deal of time from bad weather in 
his business, he continued, as I questioned him fur- 
ther ; but he had a brother in another parish, also a 
stone mason, who got his pay right along, rain or 
shine, having fallen in with a steady job of repairing 
on a gentleman's estate. As for another brother, who 
had gone to Australia " years agone," he had made 
money at gold-mining. "An', sir, — will yees believe 
it? — he owns his own farm now, sir, he do ! " He 
sighed as he reflected on the great gulf between this 
land-owning brother's station in life and his own, but 
brightened up amazingly when at parting I placed a 
sixpence in his great rough palm. What a striking 
commentary this, on the difference between the con- 
dition of the English and the American workman ! 
An American mechanic would have promptly knocked 
me down for insulting him with a tip after a road- 
side chat ; but over here, the affront would consist in 
omitting it. 

Three or four miles farther on, our way suddenly 
dipped between high stone walls into the deep little 
valley wherein lies Radstock, a coal-mining town, 
with a half-dozen shafts, each employing from a hun- 
dred and fifty to four hundred hands. It was market- 
day \ and from the hillside, in descending, we could 
see that the high street by the railway station was 
crowded with miners and rustics, separated into 
knots around pens of live-stock, and before booths 
where vociferous hawkers cried their nostrums and 
cheap jewelry. 

As we approached, other attractions seemed at 
once to lose their charm. It was necessary for us 
to pass through the market-place ; but to ride was no 



254 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

easy task, so closely did these thousand men press 
upon us in their gaping wonder to see a lady on a 
bicycle. " Well done, missis ! " " She do ut as 
well as a man ! " were the comments heard upon 
every hand, as finally we squeezed a passage through, 
and bowled off to the base of the farther edge of the 
Radstock basin, a hundred yards away. Here we 
dismounted for a long and weary climb. So long as 
we were in sight, there, below us, were a thousand 
upturned faces eagerly watching our progress, and 
now and then we stopped to look down upon them, 
right merry at the absurdity of it all. A balloon as- 
cension could not have been more amazing to these 
Radstock folk, nor have attracted a more persistent 
gaze. 

Turning a shoulder of the hill, and disappearing 
from their view, we rested a bit by a wayside spring. 
A brewer's wagoner came toiling upward, walking be- 
hind his cart. While W went on ahead, I drew 

back to walk beside our companion of the road. 

" Missus rid'n' thet theere mek great toke t'-night 
in Radstock, zur ! Many, they think from picturs a 
leddy could n' do thet theere ! But now they seen 
your young missus can, an' thet mek great toke ! 
You see thet folk they 'stonish ut you and missus? " 

I assured him we were observant of the fact. He 
asked many questions about our cycling, — for in- 
stance, whether " missus " could keep up with me. 
His astonishment was open-eyed when I assured him 
she was fully capable of doing that ; had she not 
been my equal in that matter, we should n't have 
started out together upon a tour of nearly sight hun- 
dred miles. Well, well ! he was a great traveller 



Somerset, and the Valley of the Wye. 255 

himself, for that matter, a-walking after his cart the 
greater part of the time. He went all around. He 
had even been gone from home several days at a 
time, and one day — and would I believe it ? — he 
had travelled forty-two miles, which was no joke, he 
assured me. We left him after a mile or two, — in 
the course of which he told me three or four times 
over of his great pedestrian feat, — he going down a 
hill to the left to his brewery, a cluster of buildings 
in a little wooded vale, whence arose the wholesome 
aroma of steaming malt, while we kept on along the 
ridgeway towards Bath. 

Within a mile or two of Bath, we could plainly see 
from our vantage-ground, across the undulating coun- 
try, the great " white horse " of Bratton, in Wiltshire, 
fifteen miles to the southeast. The rude figure of a 
walking horse, a hundred feet high and long, is cut 
in the chalk declivity of a hill on the western con- 
fines of Salisbury Plain, on the top of which is the 
extensive Roman encampment known as Bratton Cas- 
tle. While we were in the shadow of a cloud, the 
sun was shining brightly on the eastern hills, so that 
the effigy stood out with startling distinctness in its 
dark-green setting. The antiquarian doctors disagree 
as to the age of the Bratton horse, — some claiming it 
as an undoubted memorial of Alfred's defeat of the 
Danes at Edington, two miles away; while others 
assert that towards the close of the seventeenth cen- 
tury it was cut by the people of the neighboring 
town of Westbury in the midst of a protracted revel. 
There is another white horse in Wiltshire, at Oldbury, 
that can be seen for nearly thirty miles ; but that 
is clearly a modern imitation, not older than 1785. 



256 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

The great original is that of Berkshire, described so 
graphically in " Tom Brown's School-Days," and 
which we shall visit upon our way eastward. There 
is no one to doubt the antiquity of the Berkshire 
nag. 

It had showered several times this afternoon. The 
entrance into Bath (fifty-four thousand inhabitants) 
this evening was by way of a sharp down-grade with 
many turnings, and the smooth surface so slippery 
with muddy slime as to be right dangerous for cy- 
clists. With cautious grip we made the long descent, 
with no more serious accident than a spill to myself, 
which plastered my machine as thoroughly as though 

it had been steeped in a mud bath. \Y went 

safely through the ordeal, although she says her wrist 
muscles feel to-night as if they had been pounded 
with a club. I hardly know which is the most tiring, 
— a tramp up a steep hill, or a ride down such a 
one as here rims the river Avon on the south. 

Bristol, Tuesday, 28/fc. After tramping about Bath 
all the morning, we ran up to Bristol (two hundred and 
ten thousand inhabitants) this afternoon by ^rain, leav- 
ing our machines behind us at the hotel. Although 
no longer the chief seaport in West England, Bristol is 
still a busy town, and its fine harbor filled with ship- 
ping from America, Ireland, and the West Indies. 
From here, Sebastian Cabot sailed in 149 S, upon the 
voyage which led to the Anglicizing of North Amer- 
ica. Here was the centre of the kidnapping system 
which supplied indented servants for the American 
colonies ; and Bristol profited largely from the early 
slave-trade. 

There is an abundance of antiquities in Bristol. 



Somerset, a7id the Valley of the Wye. 257 

The towering thirteenth-century church of St. Mary 
Redcliffe is a notable example of Perpendicular archi- 
tecture ; and Elizabeth described it as " the fairest, 
the goodliest, and most famous parish church in Eng- 
land." There is a double row of fourteenth-century 
shops and dwellings in Mary-le-port Street that would 
be the making of an antiquarian museum. St. Peter's 
Hospital, at the end of this narrow thoroughfare, is a 
combination of the domestic styles of the twelfth and 
sixteenth centuries, and remarkably picturesque with 
its wealth of open timber-work, latticed windows, and 
carved brackets. The cathedral of the fourteenth 
century is full of interest ; so are the " mayor's 
chapel," and dozens of quaint old buildings, domes- 
tic and ecclesiastical, in other parts of the city, upon 
which we are continually stumbling as we pick our 
way through the alleys and the by-streets. 

Over the stone pavements of Bristol there is an 
incessant procession of heavy vehicles, even far into 
the night ; and the din is deafening. London is 
quiet compared to it. Bristol street-crowds are rude, 
jostling, boisterous, especially near the harbor. We 
long for the quieter ways of the inland towns, feeling 
stifled in this hot and noisy atmosphere, redolent of 
tar and the smells of commerce. 

Monmouth, Wednesday, 2gtk. We took train this 
morning for the Valley of the Wye, through Severn 
Tunnel, arriving at Monmouth (six thousand inhabit- 
ants) in the afternoon. Gray calls this birthplace of 
" Prince Hal " and Geoffrey of Monmouth " the de- 
light of the eye and the very seat of pleasure." On 
the contrary, we find the dingy old town dull enough, 
and with few points of interest. It is well situated 
17 



258 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

on high land at the meeting of the Monnow and the 
Wye ; but life here seems hard and dry. Beyond the 
quaint seven-hundred-years-old gateway on the Mon- 
now bridge, the architecture is solemnly mean. The 
remains of the castle where Henry V. was born are 
very meagre, although the sergeant who showed us 
around appeared proud enough of the bit or two of 
low, bare walls. A barracks now occupies the site 
for the accommodation of six hundred soldiers, most 
of whom are at present in a tented camp just without 
the town. A statue of Henry is displayed on the 
gloomy market-house, on Agincourt Square. The 
local church is an ugly conglomerate, constructed of 
the materials of previous sanctuaries built upon the 
spot, some of them of great antiquity. 

There is a magnificent view from Kymin Hill, two 
and a half miles east of town. We climbed up there 
with much ado by a circuitous path, but were recom- 
pensed for the effort. The tortuous Wye valley, far 
above and below, lay like a map at our feet. While 
we were in sunshine, a storm raged over in the Welsh 
mountains, twenty miles to the west ; sometimes the 
peaks were wholly hidden from view in lowering 
clouds, which anon would lift and reveal to us ser- 
rated sky-lines silhouetted against darker masses of 
" thunder-heads " beyond. 

We found a shorter path for descent ; but it is as 
steep and zigzagged as Clovelly, and as strewn with 
stones as the bed of a mountain torrent, in which 
capacity it doubtless serves on occasion. Frequent 
sidepaths lead from this to the rude stone cabins of 
peasants, which often have but one door, the ground 
behind being as high as the chimney-top. Live-stock 



Somerset, and the Valley of the Wye. 259 

is necessarily in close communion with these hillside 
dwellers, under the same roof. No vehicle could 
ever ascend this rugged street on Kymin's slope, but 
we met laden donkeys struggling up at the point of 
cudgels in their owners' hands ; and cows ascending 
from pasture, in the evening glow, were laboring 
homeward, driven by black-eyed, bare-footed maids, 
who spared neither words nor blows in urging on the 
panting beasts. 

Bath, Thursday, 7,0th. We were off early this 
morning by train from Monmouth to Raglan, seven 
miles to the southwest. A walk of five minutes 
through the neat little village, with its market cross 
and restored church, brought us to the castle, made 
famous by the aged Marquis of .Worcester's defence 
for ten weeks against the Parliamentary forces (1646). 
It is a most imposing pile, with moat and keep well- 
preserved and picturesquely draped with ivy. The 
great kitchen is still used to prepare food for neigh- 
borhood fetes. Raglan is, by all odds, the most in- 
teresting castle-ruin we have yet visited in England, 
and is worthy of crossing the island to see. Like 
most other places of note in the Wye valley, it is the 
property of the Duke of Beaufort, who appoints gen- 
tlemen of the neighborhood as custodians of his sev- 
eral antiques ; these engage workmen to keep them 
in repair, compensation being derived from the en- 
trance-fees charged to tourists. 

Booking through by train to Tintern, farther down 
the Wye, we were soon at the " ivy- vested wall " of 
Tintern Abbey, which is charmingly set by the river- 
bank in a winding tidal meadow, from either side 
of which sharply rise wooded hills of commanding 



260 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

height. Built by Cistercian monks, who first cele- 
brated Mass here in 1268, the shell of the abbey church 
is still complete, lacking only its marvellously groined 
roof and central tower. There are scattered about 
the remains of some of the secular buildings of the 
abbey ; but they are insignificant compared with the 
sanctuary, which was of cathedral form, in the decor- 
ated Gothic style. It is ungrateful in us to dub the 
monks of old, drones in the human hive, when they 
left behind them such stupendous works of art as the 
ecclesiastical piles which fairly stud Great Britain and 
the Continent. They were the master-builders of 
their race ; the architects of our time can do nothing 
better than imitate them in a feeble way. Tintern 
Abbey, in its sequestered vale, must in its day have 
been a sculptured dfeam. The contemplative man 
who chose to immure himself in this heavenly abode, 
in ages so vile as those we style mediaeval, at least 
merits our sympathy. 

Raglan we had to ourselves most of the morning ; 
but one can seldom be favored thus at Tintern, which 
is much resorted to by West of England excursion- 
ists, who, we noticed, almost invariably brought their 
lunches. It appears that the hotels and restaurant 
proprietors in the straggling little village have over- 
reached themselves in prices, and a strike is in pro- 
gress among the visitors, much to the discomfiture 
of the former. 

It is not much over five miles by the highway from 
Tintern to Chepstow, at the mouth of the Wye ; and as 
the tide was in — to the betterment of the view — we 
concluded to walk. Two miles down the valley, near 
% rustic cottage whose inner walls are lined with moss, 



Somerset \ and the Valley of the Wye. 261 

a toilsome climb up a winding way — chiefly of rude 
stone stairs — brought us to the summit of Wynde 
Cliff. Here, nine hundred feet above the tide, there 
is a famous comprehensive eastward view of the Wye 
valley, and, far off on the horizon, the glistening 
Severn. The effect of looking down upon this broad 
expanse — of twisting, cliff-girt valley, the sombre 
stretches of the Forest of Dean to the north, and 
the hedge-streaked fields of Chepstow plain — is as 
if one were viewing it from a captive balloon. 

Descending by a longer but easier path through the 
woods, we finally reached the highway again through 
a sheep pasture, near the beautiful estate of Piercefield 
Park, where for two miles we walked in the shadow 
of its high stone wall, unbroken save by two or three 
gates, through which we had lovely vistas of the de- 
mesne within. Had it been Tuesday, we should have 
been permitted to pass the lodge, and after a charm- 
ing walk through the finely wooded grounds, emerge 
at the gate near Chepstow ; but it was not Tues- 
day, and we trudged humbly on the outside, meeting 
country people coming from town in their little carts, 
— the men sometimes hilarious and the women with 
their hands full, at once jogging the donkey in the 
shafts and repressing the one on the seat. 

Chepstow Castle is a typical Norman fortress of 
stalwart proportions and striking situation. On the 
town side it is defended by a moat, still used in part 
as the public duck-pond, while riverward its ivy-draped 
walls are a continuation of the perpendicular cliff upon 
which it is so grandly perched. Here Martin, the regi- 
cide, was incarcerated during the twenty years preced- 
ing his death (1680) ; and before his time (1656) it 



262 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

was a prison for Jeremy Taylor. Chepstow is not so 
fine a pile as Raglan, but nevertheless is replete with 
interesting features, and one of the most romantic old 
castles in the United Kingdom. 

It was interesting, on the railway back to Bath, to 
find in our compartment a Bristol merchant who had 
a reasonably clear perception of America, although he 
had never crossed the Atlantic, and talked intelli- 
gently of our affairs, fresh from a reading of Bryce's 
" American Commonwealth." A stout Conservative, 
he could not understand why we allowed such rascal- 
ity in the management of our public affairs, — why 
Americans subscribed to funds to foment disorder in 
Ireland ; nor just what it was we saw, as a nation, to 
admire in Mr. Gladstone, who to his thinking was a 
political trickster ; or why we published such abomi- 
nably sensational newspapers over on our side (some 
specimens had been sent to him by American corre- 
spondents, and he thought them fit only for the garbage 
heap) . I did my best to enlighten him ; but I am 
afraid that when we changed at Bristol, in the midst 
of a pouring rain, and bade our hearty companion 
good-by, he was still of the opinion that American 
politics is demoralizing, and the tone of public life 
among us low. Indeed, Englishmen of intelligence 
appear quite generally to entertain this idea, be they 
Liberals or Conservatives ; and in the face of it an 
American over here finds himself often in the posture 
of defence. Bryce's work is doing something to 
counteract this ; but there are those who find in it noth- 
ing but confirmation of their views. The witnesses to 
our political rottenness, universally cited, are our news- 
papers. It is difficult to make Englishmen believe 



Somerset, and the Valley of the Wye. 263 

that the journals grossly overstate the case in their bit- 
ter partisan strivings, and that official morality, except 
in municipal administration, is not essentially lower than 
in England ; so long as a large class of American 
newspapers refer to Congress as a den of thieves, and 
joke about jobbery in our State legislatures, English- 
men, who take their own journals seriously, will con- 
tinue to think of American politics as a sink of 
iniquity, and thank their stars they are still loyal 
subjects of Her Majesty, God bless her ! 





CHAPTER XIV. 



FROM BATH TO OXFORD, BY THE WHITE HORSE VALE. 



T1TOOTTON BASSETT, Wilts, Friday, July i. 
* * We did our duty by Bath this morning. At 
the Pump-Room, redolent of memories of Beau Nash, 
there were all manner of folk drinking the sweetish 
warm water and reading the morning papers ; we found 
it hard work to dispose of a glassful between us, al- 
though a jolly-looking bishop, near by, in his black 
silk stockings and short-clothes, took a quart with 
ease, laughing and chatting with a foppish friend, 
both of them enjoying the stuff immensely. The 
abbey is a handsome sixteenth-century structure ; but 
best of all sights are the Roman baths, especially those 
recently discovered. Standing by the brink of one 
of these ample basins, with the tepid water flowing 
into it through the very conduits used by the Romans, 
with sculptured pillars all about, and all the offices 
and apparatus of the once gorgeous establishment 
revealed, one is easily carried in imagination seven- 
teen centuries behind our times. In stumbling across 



Bath to Oxford, by the White Horse Vale. 265 

the all-too-scanty remains of Roman magnificence in 
Great Britain, one is profoundly impressed with the 
pitiful waste of human effort. The Romans had 
reared upon this island a civilization second only to 
that of Rome itself, and yet it had all to be swept 
away before the inroads of barbarians, and the entire 
work done over again with the slow development of 
the new race. And I am not sure that we have yet 
caught up in all particulars. 

It rained most persistently this afternoon while we 
wheeled to Wootton Bassett, — a run of twenty-five 
miles to the northeast. Closely muffled in rubber 
clothing, and with heads bowed to escape the pelting 
of the storm, we saw but little on the way. There 
remains to-night the general impression of a country 
for the most part level and well streaked with wood- 
land. The hills which often closely girt our way 
abound in veins of a white building stone that is 
sawn into huge blocks at Box, near where we crossed 
from Somerset into Wilts, and also in other small 
towns through whose smooth and glistening streets we 
quickly flitted, at times half blinded by the sheets of 
water which struck us violently amidships. 

At the ancient and busy manufacturing town of 
Chippenham (seven thousand inhabitants), where we 
stopped for lunch, there is a notable church, built evi- 
dently at different times, but having a general Norman 
aspect. Some deliciously quaint monumental inscrip- 
tions are to be found within. One of the brasses, 
dated 1620, had these curious lines interwoven with 
human figures holding branches, — 

" Eche man 's a plant and every tree 
Like man is sobject to mortal itie. 



266 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

These branches dead and falen away are gone, 
From vs vntill the resverection. 
These grafted thus by wedlock's sacred dome, 
(God gravnt) may flourishe till those other come." 

Another specimen of the elegiac, which so delighted 
our forefathers, is inscribed on a flat slab dedicated to 
the memory of " John Ely, Gent., sometime burgesse 
of this towne, who died November 25th, 1663," an d 
runs thus : — 

H 'T is well I am stone, for to preserve his name, 
Who was, if mortal may be, without blame ; 
In his religious, civil practice just ; 
In his calling no traytor to his trust. 
If this report consuming time shall weare 
And wipe out — Search Heaven's records, 't is there." 

The worst bit of road to-day was the half-mile-long 
hill leading up into Wootton Bassett. It is thickly 
laid with sticky mud, which might have tried our 
patience earlier on the tour, but we have grown 
callous to all manner of drawbacks. The sky had 
cleared by the time we wheeled through the portal of 
The Royal Oak at six o'clock, with every prospect of 
a glorious day to-morrow. 

About all there is of Wootton Bassett is on this one 
wide street, half a mile long. Perhaps there are 
fifteen hundred inhabitants, certainly no more; yet 
centuries ago it was a place of no mean importance, 
and before the great Reform Bill used to send two 
members to Parliament. From the coffee-room we 
look out upon an ancient town-hall set upon stone 
pillars in the middle of the street. The open space 
beneath is now fenced in with an iron grating ) and in 
the centre are exhibited the old stocks, which for- 



Bath to Oxford, by the White Horse Vale. 267 

merly stood in the market-place at the end of the 
hall. Originally built six hundred years ago, this 
little town-hall was " restored " in 1889, the extent of 
the restoration being the removal of the eighteenth- 
century plaster which hid from view the fine open 
timber-work. There yet lives in Wootton a man who 
for some drunken freak sat in the stocks for several 
days, thirty years ago, and collected as high as four 
dollars a day from sympathizing passers-by. At the 
time of the restoration the old reprobate begged to 
be again fastened in the machine, and greatly enjoyed 
the notoriety of doing duty as an object-lesson in 
history. Early in the present century there was still 
to be seen here an old ducking-stool, wherein shrews 
were seated while being doused in the village horse- 
pond ; but the pool has been filled up, and the stool 
sent by the lord of the manor to some neighboring 
town not so rich in relics. 

After dinner we hunted up the shoemaker, who 
keeps the key of the town-hall, — an intelligent man 
with a good knowledge of the history of his district. 
The room is no longer devoted to political purposes, 
but contains a number of historical relics of the 
neighborhood, and a library of two hundred volumes, 
which latter are circulated among as many subscribers, 
who pay fifty cents per year. An art class of fifty or 
so members also meet here ; and some specimens of 
their work, which chanced to be on the easels, showed 
good instruction. 

In thumbing an old volume in the library, I stum- 
bled upon an interesting petition sent up by " the 
mayor and free-tenants of this borough " to Parlia- 
ment, in the fifteenth century, which well illustrates 



268 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

the notions of the rights of free common then ex- 
istent, as well as other customs of the times, and the 
stout spirit of resistance roused in the hearts of these 
sturdy men of Wilts, when driven too hard by their 
masters four hundred and fifty years ago. It appears 
that the mayor and free-tenants of Wootton Bassett 
had from time immemorial enjoyed free common of 
pasture in Fasterne Great Park, which contained two 
thousand acres. But the manor coming into posses- 
sion of Sir Francis Englefield, he had enclosed the 
park, leaving the people only a tract of one hundred 
acres, called Wootton- Lawnd. They submitted with- 
out much demur for fifty-six years, making new 
pasture rules to fit the case, — " to the mayor two 
cowes feeding, and to the constable one cowes feed- 
ing, and to every inhabitant of the said borough one 
cowes feeding, and no more, as well the poor as the 
rich, and every one to make and maintaine a certain 
parallel of bound, set forth to every person." Engle- 
field's son " did, by some means, gain the charter of 
our towne into his hands," and then began " vexatious 
suits " against the people relative to the common, 
and indeed " did divers times attempt to gain the pos- 
session thereof, by putting in divers sorts of cattell." 
The petition recites that " the Lord, in his mercy, 
did send thunder and lightning from heaven," which 
killed some of the said Englefield's cattle and drove 
the others out of the common ; one cannot but 
suspect that the indignant commoners assisted in 
the operation. 

The Englefield heirs, after a generation of this sort of 
petty tyranny, at last compelled the people wholly to sur- 
render their rights of common, which always had been 



Bath to Oxford, by the White Horse Vale. 269 

a valuable commodity in the market, and take leases 
from the manor lord. The Sir Francis who was in 
possession at the time of the petition had followed 
all this up by closing certain by-roads in the town, 
and by shutting up the booths in the market-place, 
and — worst of all, apparently — " doth seek wayes 
and meanes to take the election of the mayor of our 
towne to hiraselfe, . . . which is a breach of our 
customed' The paper pathetically closes : "And as 
for our common, we do verily believe that no corpora- 
tion in England so much wronged is as we are, for we 
are put out of all common that ever we had, and hath 
not so much as one foot of common left unto us, nor 
never shall have any ; we are thereby grown so in 
poverty, unless it please God to move the hearts of 
this honourable house to commiserate our cause, and 
to enact something for us, that we may enjoy our right 
again." It is signed by the mayor and twenty-two 
inhabitants ; and following their signatures is this sug- 
gestive note : " Divers more hands we might have 
had, but that many of them doth rent bargaines of 
the lord of the manner, and they are fearfull that they 
shall be put forth of their bargaines, and then shall 
not tell how to live : otherwise they would have set to 
their hands." 

It would be interesting to know the upshot of this 
turning of the trodden worm ; but the dusty tome did 
not give the sequel, and the shoemaker, though other- 
wise learned, was as to this uninformed. The petition, 
however, presents a vivid picture of the times, and 
shows how deep-laid were the roots of the popular 
discontent which eventually blossomed into the English 
Revolution. 



270 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

The wheezy band of the Salvation Army, now awak- 
ening the echoes of the market-place below, brought 
us back to the nineteenth century, and we descended 
to the street. Wootton, though a market-town, is a 
purely agricultural neighborhood, and altogether too 
rustic to support a local corps. The band is from 
Swindon, half a dozen miles eastward, and visits here 
three or four times yearly. With it were a dozen red 
blouses and poke-bonnets ; and in the tail of the pro- 
cession up and down the village street was a following 
of small boys, beating time on tin pans and making a 
rare hubbub. The Salvation bass-drummer was a 
character, — a great burly fellow, good-nature beam- 
ing from every wrinkle of his broad red face, and 
attired in toggery which was a cross between' the uni- 
form of a Salvationist and that of a militia drum- 
major. He stepped ridiculously high ; and now and 
then his baton would be sent twirling into the air, 
to be caught deftly in perfect time for the next 
stroke. This juggling performance appeared greatly 
to please the yokels, who admiringly laughed and 
cheered ; and it was plain to be seen that the bass- 
drummer was a recognized star among the Swindon 
players. 

Sometimes the corps would stop by the Sebastopol 
cannon in the market-place to form a circle for prayer 
and song and hoarse-throated exhortation ; and then 
the boys were more vociferous than ever, pounding 
with stones upon the Crimean trophy, and upon the 
iron railing of the town-hall. It was certainly a great 
occasion for Wootton Bassett ; and a white-haired 
smock-frock, leaning on his staff by our side, declared 
" 't were better 'n a 'arvest 'ome ! " The Salvation- 



Bath to Oxford, by tJie White Horse Vale. 271 

ists appeared to enjoy it also, and took up a goodly 
collection among us all. 

During a lull in the proceedings, I asked a me- 
chanic, with whom I had picked up a chatting ac- 
quaintance, if Wootton was growing. " Not it, zur ! 
It be goin' down'ard more, like 't be a cow's tail, I 
say ! I bean't a native 'ere, zur, but I 've hear'd tell 
on as there was oncet a fact'ry 'ere, zur ; but there 's 
none on 't now, zur ! " However, we noticed that 
there is a large brewery, as in almost every other 
English town we have been in ; it is the one busi- 
ness on this island that can flourish in the deadest 
community. 

Oxford, Saturday, 2d. As we started out from 
Wootton Bassett this morning, the skies gave every 
promise of redeeming their sunset pledge. The air 
was soft ; and Nature had been freshened by the bath 
of yesterday. Upon the level plain, which continues 
six miles farther to Swindon, fields alternate with 
woodlands. Bright scarlet poppies dazzle the eye 
wherever it rests, — amid the nodding grain, in the 
hedge-banks, and beside the paths ; ox-eye daisies, 
meadow-sweet, and buttercups are still profusely in 
flower ; smaller daisies everywhere assert themselves, 
also various kinds of mints, while pink and white 
roses are freely entwined with the hedge-thorn, and 
pretty grasses daintily garnish this paradise of bloom. 
Leaving the spick-and-span new town of Swindon, 
— a creation of the Great Western Railway Company, 
whose extensive works are here, — we ascended a hill 
to the right, at the top of which lies the old town, 
which is rather picturesque, with some good shops 
and an excellent church. Downhill again sharply, 



272 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

and we are on the high-road to Shrivenham, eight 
miles eastward. The path is still agreeably shaded 
and level, with the Ashbury and Liddington Downs 
looming up two miles to the right. 

In the neighborhood of Stratton St. Margaret, a 
cheerful hamlet, a wayside pottery attracted us ; its 
yard, otherwise kept up as a flower-garden, is well 
strewn with samples of the many kinds of drainage 
and roof tiles, garden vases, fancy flower-pots, and 
building ornaments made here. The proprietor, an 
honest-looking artisan of the better class, came out 
from his shop upon seeing us look over his wall, and 
seemed well pleased at our complimenting his artistic 
handiwork. 

From Swindon to Shrivenham we pass alongside 
the Wiltshire and Berkshire canal. The channel, 
now seldom used, and largely choked with weeds, 
is frequently spanned by little counterpoise bridges. 
We stopped near South Marston to photograph one 
of these picturesque crossings. A smiling-faced old 
peasant woman, wearing one of the large white sun- 
bonnets peculiar to this region, was passing over at 
the time ; and I hailed her to pause for a moment 
while I prepared for the shot. The ordeal over, she 
came to me and inquired my charge for taking pic- 
tures. I explained that it was merely a pastime, and 
asked her to stand by her brick cottage near by, and 
have her photograph taken, promising that should 
the negative turn out well, she should have a print 
from it on my return to America. Never did a 
prouder woman pose before a camera. Her hus- 
band, coining up at this juncture, was not to be 
outdone in gallantry, for he plucked from their neat 



Bath to Oxford, by the White Horse Vale. 273 

garden a corsage bouquet for W , and presented it 

to her with much native grace. The farmer's wife, 
from over the bridge, now appeared, — a sprightly, 
intelligent, young married woman, who invited us into 
her dairy for a glass of milk. She had a brother in 
New Zealand, which fact she thought would interest 
us, we being from America, — a far-fetched conclu- 
sion, but doubtless in her mind these far-away lands 
are associated as next-door neighbors. 1 

A mile or two on we passed the border into Berk- 
shire, and soon were in Shrivenham, a delightfully 
quiet village, down whose broad street there was a 
charming vista, — clumps of elms in the centre of the 
roadway, with a double line of neat brick cottages, 
many of them freshly thatched, every garden show- 
ing its geraniums and wall-flowers ; here and there 
was a timbered gable-front, and quaint little shops 
with bowed windows, in a style which has not 
changed in rural England these hundreds of years. 
Full of varied color is this delightful old village street, 
— yellows, reds, browns, and greens, and over the 
division walls nodding hollyhocks in a medley of 
startling hues. While we paused in the scant shadow 
of an elm to contemplate this pleasing picture of just 
such a village as Goldsmith loved, the parish church 
clock chimed the hour of noon, and a troop of fresh- 
looking children came pouring through a gate in a 
high stone wall, beyond which rose an ivy-clad Na- 
tional school. They flocked about us as we stood ; 

1 The two canal pictures were developed satisfactorily, and 
copies sent to the Wiltshire woman as promised. A month 
later I had a pleasant note of thanks from the good farm-wife, 
who had acted as her secretary. 

18 



274 O ur Cycling Tour in England. 

but all save a few of the boldest scattered like sheep, 
laughing and screaming, as I prepared to photograph 
them. 

At the end of the village is the " big house " of 
the manor lord, Becket House ; and here we turned 
from the Oxford highway, bearing off over a by-road 
leading towards Compton Beauchamp and White 
Horse Hill. At the parting of the ways, haymakers 
were at work in a field to the left ; and beyond 
stretched an avenue of lofty firs leading up to the 
imposing mansion of the local nabob. 

A mile and a half of level track, often overhung 
with elms, and crossing several pretty meadow-brooks, 
brought us to a large farmhouse, where we applied 
for directions as to the proper way to reach the 
White Horse, our faithful ordnance map being for 
once obscure. There came to my rap a young lady 
in black, both buxom and fair, who not only set us 
right, but treated us to a jug of milk, and bade us 
rest awhile in her cosey parlor. This farmhouse, the 
" big house," and the rectory, which we should soon 
see, were the only houses, she said, in all Compton 
parish. 

"A lonely time for the parson, on Sundays," W 

suggested. 

" Oh, there are a good many of us all together, in 
the three houses, you know ; and then there 's the 
cottage people, you know, besides." It must be a 
patriarchal scene, on Sundays and holidays, when 
the parish of Compton Beauchamp turns out en 
masse, — the squire, the rector, and the farmer, each 
in state with his family, and humbly in their train a 
throng of awe-stricken yokels. 



Bath to Oxford, by the White Horse Vale. 275 

Just beyond was the seat of the squire, — a beauti- 
ful old mansion set in a wooded park, with impres- 
sive high iron gates at the entrance lodge. Here 
again, as at Becket, haymakers were busy in an ad- 
joining field, but gathered in a group to talk us over 
as we rode <by ; evidently tourists seldom appear on 
this sequestered by-road. A little old church stood 
on the edge of a copse near by; just beyond the 
park lodge was the rectory, — an ideal dwelling in the 
pointed and gabled Elizabethan style, set in an ex- 
tensive flower-garden, with a conservatory and many 
evidences of wealth and refined taste. Back of this 
cool, enticing picture abruptly rose the Lambourn 
Downs, with their rugged sky lines, all carpeted with 
light green sward, brightly lit up by the glowing sun. 
An old farm laborer, clean-shaven and white-smocked, 
evidently a superannuated pensioner, came hobbling 
by us with his stick, and stood against the great gates 
at the lodge, watching us intently. In his eyes, 
doubtless, our journeying through here on those out- 
landish machines was a strange freak, — something for. 
the old woman and him to talk about, over their 
humble tea. " Rum uns, they ! " 

There were some gates to open and pass through 
on the way up a steep and winding way, then an- 
other high-walled farmhouse, with sheep grazing all 
around ; and at last we entered upon a white, dusty 
road running at right angles to this, and turning to 
the left were at the foot of the famous White Horse 
Hill. Above and in front of us rose for nearly nine 
hundred feet the treeless down, — an outlying spur 
of the Lambourn range. Leaving our wheels stacked 
at the base, we clambered up a path faintly outlined 



276 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

in the soft and springy sward, and soon stood beside 
the ancient effigy, which is barely noticeable in the 
road below, though distinctly visible for many miles 
off on the plain to the north towards Great Faring- 
don and the valley of the Thames. 

" Carv'd rudely on the pendant soil, is seen 
The snow-white courser stretching o'er the green : 
The antique figure scan with curious eye, 
The glorious monument of victory ! 
There England rear'd her long-dejected head ; 
There Alfred triumph'd, and invasion bled." 

A few simple trenches in the chalk are all that 
form this figure, which Alfred is said to have delin- 




eated here to celebrate his victory at neighboring 
Ashdown (873) ; although crude, it was an ingen- 
ious piece of work, and at a considerable distance, 
the glaring white, sharply contrasted with the deep 
green of the surrounding turf, represents with some 
faithfulness a galloping white horse, — the standard 
of the West Saxons, whom Briton's hero then com- 
jnanded for his brother yEthelred. Each line or 
trench is about ten feet broad and a foot in depth ; 
and this outline sketch made upon the spot gives a 
fair idea of the work, which is three hundred and 



Bath to Oxford, by the White Horse Vale. 277 

seventy feet in length, and is said to occupy an acre 
of ground ; the eye is represented by a patch of 
untouched turf, perhaps eighteen inches square. 

The situation of the effigy on the almost abrupt 
slope of a hill, valueless except as a sheep pasture, 
has kept it from being washed away by storms, dis- 
turbed by cattle, or turned up by the plough ; thus it 
has stood unharmed for these thousand years, and 
doubtless will remain secure from obliteration for 
another thousand. The growth of weeds in the 
trenches, and the crumbling of the turf on the upper 
verge, are, however, sources of danger early recog- 
nized by the people of the district, who appear to 
have had for ages past a rare fondness for the hoary 
monument. Some centuries ago, land-holders in the 
vicinity were obliged by the conditions of tenure " to 
cleanse and repair it." These conditions have long 
since been cancelled ; but the custom of assembling 
here from time to time, and pulling the weeds and 
otherwise keeping the trenches intact, is still in 
vogue, — the " scouring the horse," as it is called, 
being the occasion of a rustic holiday and much 
merry-making. This work had been done not long 
before our visit, for upon the turf still lay with- 
ered weeds, — " hairs plucked from the old mare's 
tail." 

The White Horse stands at the head of a deep 
and narrow ravine, locally dubbed " the manger," 
the sides of which are horizontally wrinkled, appar- 
ently from early land-slides, — "the giant's stair" of 
"Tom Brown," who gives a loving description of this 
storied region. A soft blanket of turf covers the en- 
tire down ; upon the " stair " there is a dense growth 



278 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

of delicate grass, as compact and lustrous as velvet, 
which, tossed by the breeze, exhibits iridescent 
shades of yellowish-green ; while all around are 
swarms of little yellow and purple flowers, strangers 
to us, and masses of mint which emit a pungent odor 
as we crush them under foot. 

Up beyond the White Horse, still quite a climb, is 
the grass-grown earth-ring of the Danish camp, — 
Uffington Castle. It is even now, after these thou- 
sand years of storms, some six or eight feet in height, 
with a deep ditch without, and might be a mile in 
circumference. Here, on the highest ground of the 
district, lay the invading army the night before the 
momentous battle, — ^Ethelred and Alfred being en- 
camped on hill-tops to the west, near Ashbury. The 
view from the ancient rampart embraces a complete 
sweep of the horizon, — roundabout and far south- 
ward, the sturdy Lambourn Downs, one great sheep 
pasture ; to the north, the well-wooded Vale of the 
White Horse, traversed by the river Ock, which pours 
into the Thames at Abingdon, twenty miles northeast- 
ward. Dotted here and there throughout the broad 
vale are villages, — Uffington, Goosey, Challow, Balk- 
ing, Shellingford, and a score of others dear to every 
reader of " Tom Brown ; " their red-tiled roofs gleam 
vividly amid the dark trees, and bits of new patching 
fairly dazzle the sight as the sun sparkles upon them. 
The square towers of little Norman churches are fre- 
quent in the scene, with now and then a modest 
spire. Small purls of smoke go swiftly darting across 
the lowly landscape, over the meadows and threading 
the woodlands, marking the passage of trains on the 
Great Western Railway between London and Bath ; 






Bath to Oxford, by the W J lite Horse Vale. 279 

while flitting clouds throw strong lights and shadows 
on the variegated surface of the vale. 

It is lonely up here on the hill-tops : we see only 
a few stray sheep, widely scattered ; on the slopes far 
below are occasional shepherds and their flocks, and 
folds made of wattled hurdles. Winding along in 
front of the Castle, and disappearing to the east over 
the Ilsley Downs, is a broad Roman road, — the 
Ridge way, or Ickleton Street, now grown to turf, but 
as clearly defined as in the days when the legions 
of the Empire made and trod it. A horseman, trim 
as English riders always are, came galloping along 
the ancient thoroughfare as we stood on the rampart, 
and after pausing for a moment to watch us, disap- 
peared down a neighboring ravine. Soon we our- 
selves sought the White Horse once more, and then 
scrambled down to our machines. Turning to look 
back from the " stair," we saw a procession of four 
ponderous plough-horses, two of them ridden, pass 
over the Ridgeway above us, a striking picture, — the 
great black beasts sharply outlined against the ethe- 
real blue, and the sprawling white effigy beneath 
them, set in its frame of vivid green. 

It was seven miles into Wantage, over a bench road 
at the base of the chalk downs, fairly level, and 
often prettily arched with elms. Below us to the 
left, not far off from our by-road, were the charming 
little red-roofed villages of Kingston, Lisle, Sparsholt, 
and Childrey. At Kingston we might have seen King 
Alfred's "blowing stone," which " Tom Brown" de- 
scribes ; but we were hungry and tired after the 
goodly run from Wootton to White Horse and the 
brave climb up to Ufffngton, so after pausing a mo- 



28o Our Cycling Tour in England, 

ment at the cross-roads for a council of war, con- 
cluded to push on to Wantage and lunch. Neither, 
we may as well confess, did we visit Wayland Smith's 
forge, the Druidical ruin, a mile west of the White 
Horse, which Scott has told about in " Kenilworth," 
nor go over to see the Roman remains at Seven Bar- 
row Farm. It is impossible to turn aside for every 
monument near one's path, in a country packed so 
full of interest as is this dear old mother-land of ours. 

Wantage (three thousand inhabitants), delightfully 
situated on the plain, a mile or two north from the 
base of the West Ilsley Downs, is a pretty, quaint, and 
peaceful market-town. It was the birthplace of the 
great Alfred, whose battle monument we have just 
been visiting. Count Gleichen's heroic marble statue 
of England's half-mythical worthy stands in the centre 
of the broad market-place, near the portal of The Bear 
Inn, where we stopped for lunch and rest. The inn 
itself, which has been in the family of our host since 
1682, is full of interest as atypical old-time coaching 
hostelry ; its monstrous gate, thick-strewn with bolts 
and bars, is a sight to behold. The cruciform parish 
church of the fourteenth century is also worthy of a 
visit. There are six priests connected with this 
venerable sanctuary, as well as a considerable sister- 
hood, which to a casual observer seems an undue 
allowance for so modest a town. 

After an hour's refreshing rest at Wantage, where 
we would have liked to linger more, we were again in 
the saddle at six o'clock, with fourteen miles between 
us and Oxford. The first ten miles were over a well- 
kept road, stretching off through meadows and heath- 
land. Beyond Grove, a quaint village in which nearly 



Bath to Oxford \ by the White Horse Vale. 28 1 

every cottage is thatched, and where several aged 
men and women are attired in costumes that were 
fashionable a hundred years ago, we passed through 
no settlement worthy the name of hamlet. Now and 
then we caught sight of a little cluster of farmstead 
roofs through a clump of woods far off in the distance, 
or passed a thatched cottage by the wayside, or a 
dreary stone barn. In the long shadows of the even- 
ing, these sparse evidences of settlement, the hedge- 
less fields, the far stretches of desolate heath, and the 
gloomy forest bits through which we occasionally 
dipped, made up a picture of loneliness suggestive of 
a Dakota plain. 

Near the thin line of settlement, which is styled 
Frilford on the ordnance map, we left the highway, 
and for a few miles followed a by-path, now thickly 
hemmed in with forest, now passing through pictu- 
resque openings, rich with underbrush and a wealth of 
copse flowers. In one sequestered glade the turf on 
either side was riddled with rabbit burrows. As we 
wheeled along, the cotton-tails would rush from their 
holes and scamper before us into the cover of the 
bushes, as many as fifty being in sight at a time. In 
another lonesome clearing stood a little brick school- 
house, fronted by a bit of garden which a young man and 
elderly woman were industriously weeding, with no 
other sign of human habitation visible for a mile in either 
direction, although possibly a village of laborers' cot- 
tages may have been hard by, hidden in the trees. 

All along the main road the finger-posts and mile- 
stones had assured us we were right for Oxford, but 
this cut-short through the timber had no such guides 
as this. At one forking of the way, not down upon 



282 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

our map, it was impossible to say which was right. 
Taking the road the most travelled, we soon were at a 
puzzling snarl of cross-roads, with a five-fingered post 
pointing to towns and villages of which we had no 
knowledge, and none of them to Oxford. It was not 
comfortable, the thought of having lost our way in these 
dense woods, with the sun already hanging low over 
the horizon, and we retraced our steps for half a mile 
to the forking, to await developments. Soon a farm 
laborer came up in a cart, assured us we had chosen 
rightly at first, and gave further directions which set 
us at ease. For a mile beyond the cross-roads our 
way lay through a damp avenue between the high 
stone walls of Besilsleigh Park, so overhung with 
trees that night appeared to have closed in upon us, 
and then we emerged upon the broad high-road 
stretching from Great Faringdon into Oxford, now 
half a dozen miles farther to the northeast. 

Rolling country intervened, with a more prosperous 
settlement and cultivated fields. There were some 
quaint inns by the way, and here and there an allot- 
ment field in which villagers were delving in the sun- 
set glow. Our ascent had been gradual up to Cum- 
nor, on the western rim of the valley of the Oxford 
Thames ; and from there was a breezy down-grade 
of nearly three miles into the town. 

Our first view of Oxford, from the height at Cum- 
nor, was just as the sun was sinking over the edge of 
the hills bordering the upper reaches of the Thames, 
which here describes an inverted V, the apex just 
beyond the sturdy Hill of Wytham to our north. Be- 
low us lay dark meadows, heavily clumped with trees, 
and over to the right the spires and towers of the 



Bath to Oxford, by the White Horse Vale. 283 

ancient university town rising above a mass of green- 
ery. To either side, tumbled hills were edging the 
fertile plain. At first deep and height were alike 
veiled in bluish mist, until a momentary rent in the 
angry storm-clouds now gathering in the west let 
forth imprisoned gleams of light which brought out 
each landscape line with sharp distinctness. Then the 
black mass, rebounding, effectually closed in upon this 
lurid splendor. As we mounted for our final coast, 
hill-tops and plain were covered with the pall of 
night. 




CHAPTER XV. 



THE THAMES VALLEY. 



A BINGDON, Berks, Monday, July 6. Oxford is 
'*•*• not to be done up in a day. There are rea- 
sons, however, why we should hurry on just now. A 
week or two hence we shall go again to the old col- 
lege town by rail, and at leisure drink our fill. 

We were off this morning at a quarter to eight, 
retracing our old path up Cumnor Hill, for our first 
objective point was Standlake. Baedeker had sent 
us thither upon this promising entry : " Archaeolo- 
gists may pay a visit to the ' British Village,' near 
Standlake, about 7 M. to the S. W. of Oxford. A lit- 
tle to the E. of Standlake, is Gaunt House, a moated 
dwelling-house of the 15th century." 

Leaving Cumnor village, redolent of "Kenilworth" 
memories, upon its windy perch, we found a rocky 
by-way leading down through scraggy Eaton, and 
soon were wallowing in the mud of an unmetalled 
meadow road, with hedges and overhanging bushes 
still glistening with raindrops, for it had showered 
heavily at sunrise. The hedge-rows down here on 
the Thames bankside are sweet with honeysuckles 



The Thames Valley. 285 

and elder blossoms, and occasionally resplendent with 
wild roses ; a yellow spurge is seen by the wayside, 
and everywhere a wealth of red poppies in the fields. 
Men and boys are mowing in the broad meadows, 
but with little spirit ; for several, looking upward at 
the sullen sky, assure us, as I hail them, that it is 
bound to be a nasty day, and little good is to come 
of their efforts. It is pleasant to be again in a region 
where a lady on a safety is not an object of curiosity. 

W 's outfit attracts no more attention now than a 

passing trap. 

We cross at Bablock Hythe ferry. The Thames 
is here but a few. rods wide, winding gracefully 
through the verdant level. So great is the sweep 
around Wytham Hill, frowning darkly yonder to the 
northeast, and so crooked the channel, that this ferry, 
though only four miles by road from Oxford, is twenty 
by water. The only building in sight is the small 
Chequers Inn, on the farther bank, half shooting-box, 
half hostelry. The landlord hears our halloo, and 
sauntering down to the landing with a brace of re- 
trievers at his heels, comes across on a rope-guided 
barge, the only one of the sort now left on the Thames, 
and for eight-cents toll sets us on our way again. A 
skiff laden with college men is going down stream as 
we pass over; and another party of stalwart young 
oarsmen have left their boat at the little pier, and are 
having a tankard of ale in The Chequers porch. 

Nobody at Bablock Hythe has heard of the " Brit- 
ish Village ; " but pinning our faith on Baedeker, we 
plunge on over a muddy road, getting pretty views 
over the well-hedged meadows towards Stanton Har- 
court, with its memories of Pope, its obelisks com- 



286 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

memorating a famous battle in this neighborhood be- 
tween the Saxons and the British (614), and its in- 
teresting architectural relics of the residence here for 
several centuries of the venerable Harcourt family. 
Branching off, however, and leaving Stanton Har- 
court on our right unvisited, we push ahead through 
the delightful little rose-embowered village of North- 
moor, and not far beyond are at the gates of Gaunt 
House, — one of the objects of our search. This 
moated mansion, some four hundred and fifty years 
old, is an excellent specimen of rural domestic archi- 
tecture of the fifteenth century ; but although bearing 
the name of John of Gaunt, there is not the remotest 
probability that it was either owned or occupied by 
him. It is a squarely built stone structure, sur- 
rounded by a moat which still holds ten feet deep 
of water and mud, and is thickly sprinkled with 
water-lilies, which vigorously flourish here. The ditch 
is spanned by a covered stone bridge, closed at the 
land end by a stout oaken door bearing a mediaeval 
knocker. The fresh and comely wife of the farmer 
who leases the holding answers our summons and 
kindly shows us about the rather gloomy house, 
which has many features of historic interest, her 
courtesy being capped by the proffer of refreshment. 
Gaunt House, she says, stood a siege in Common- 
wealth times ; and in clearing the moat four years 
ago, her husband found three cannon-balls, which 
are shown us as we take our leave. 

A mile or so farther, through a driving mist, brings 
us to the straggling village of Standlake, — a popula- 
tion of seven hundred persons being housed in old- 
fashioned cottages stretching along for fully a mile 



The Thames Valley. 287 

upon two roads crossing at right angles. Nowhere 
else have we seen so scattered a hamlet, each cottage 
having its own garden about it, and sometimes ample 
fields separating next-door neighbors. The villagers 
apparently are on different estates, which chance to 
join here. 

Thus far, not a soul had any knowledge of the 
" British Village ; " but the mistress of Gaunt House 
having suggested that the rector of the parish would 
know all there is to be known, we were soon rapping 
at the rectory door, the rain beating a tattoo upon 
our rubber cloaks, and some passers-by pausing to 
watch us, possibly thinking it a runaway couple ap- 
plying for the good offices of the "pais'n." The 
parson was off in the village, and later we found him 
a third of a mile away, at the " coffee-room," — an old 
cottage transformed into a rude club-room where the 
young fellows of the neighborhood could gather from 
five to ten o'clock each evening for innocent recrea- 
tion and reading, and, if thirsty, be served with tem- 
perance refreshments. It was the rector's method of 
running opposition to the public-house across the 
way ; and much of his time, he told us, was devoted 
to the scheme. Just now he was busy receiving from 
the village children their weekly fee of two cents per 
capita, for the privileges of the reading-room. 

Tall, smooth-shaven, with the face of a priestly 
scholar, is the spiritual mentor of this isolated Ox- 
fordshire parish. A graduate of Magdalene College, 
— Standlake is one of its livings, — he seems well 
content to devote his life to the service of these dull 
rustics, doing what he may to work out their moral 
and economic salvation. Each peasant child, as with 



288 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

trembling pleasure she laid her penny on his desk, 
was met with a sweet smile of recognition and a word 
or two of kindly inquiry ; and an awkward lad, who 
came stumbling in to get a volume from the scanty 
store of well-thumbed books, was admonished for 
coming out of hours, in such manner as a gentle 
mother might chide her blundering boy. 

Upon making known our business, the rector ex- 
plained that the hour must be devoted to his little 
parishioners, but invited us to lunch with him at the 
rectory at one o'clock, when he would tell us all he 
knew about the " British Village." We spent the 
first half-hour in wandering through the hamlet, and 
the next in the grocery shop, where we had taken 
shelter from a passing storm, our machines being 
meanwhile housed in the grocer's barn. Punctually 
our host appeared upon the street, bringing sunshine 
with him ; and we all walked leisurely towards the 
rectory, — a delightful old stone dwelling, with Eliza- 
bethan gables, roses freely clambering over porch and 
walls, and a broad gravel drive leading up to it from 
the highway. The house has been a residence for the 
local priest these six hundred years, and abounds in 
specimens of every style of English domestic architec- 
ture since its foundation. The quaint building is one 
of the most charming of abodes, and particularly in- 
teresting is the study, with its full oak panelling. 

The rector's housekeeper is his sister, who chanced 
to be away from home to-day, so that we lunched 
alone with our kindly host, who, being well versed in 
the antiquities of the neighborhood, entertained us 
most charmingly with accounts of his researches 
among them. It appeared that the " British Village " 



The Thames Valley. 289 

was not a village at all, but a cemetery, discovered in 
a field a half-mile north of Standlake church, in the 
autumn of 1857, by some members of the Society of 
Antiquaries of London. It consisted of a number of 
circular trenches and pits, in which were found urns 
and the incinerated bones of humans. The excavations 
were open only for two weeks, and then after inspec- 
tion were filled in. Ever since then the land has been 
cropped as before, nothing now indicating the pres- 
ence of the Anglo-Saxon burying-ground beyond the 
dark circles, popularly known as " fairy rings," where 
there is a richer growth of grain, owing to the greater 
depth of soil above the underlying gravel. Baedeker 
in this instance is clearly behind the times ; and the 
archaeologist who, upon his recommendation, " may 
pay a visit to the ' British Village,' " will find no more 
than a level field of oats marking the spot where once 
it was. 

We did not go out to visit the oats, but examined a 
model of the cemetery made during the fortnight of 
its exposure, thirty-four years ago, and then passed a 
pleasant hour in the rectory grounds. These embrace 
several acres in garden, lawn, and copse, prettily situated 
along the river Windrush, — a tributary of the Thames. 
Our host permits the villagers free use of the greater 
part of his shady walks. Asked if the people abuse this 
privilege, he said that sometimes young men forget they 
are in private grounds, and commit damage ; but he 
would not keep all out because of the actions of a 
few. Besides, he feels it his duty to educate his people 
up to a proper appreciation and treatment of such 
things. Old men liked to come to the path along 
the river, where there was deep shade from over- 
19 



290 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

hanging willows, and numerous benches set for them, 
there to dream the time away, " watching the running 
water, which seems to have great fascination for 
them." There are thirty acres of glebe, he said, at- 
tached to the living. This land he was fortunate 
enough to be able to rent. But the low price of 
wheat has created general distress, — " first, the far- 
mers feel it, then the landlords, and then the parsons ; 
we are catching it now." Farm land was a drug in the 
market, explained our friend, as he walked beside us, 
his hands clasped behind his back, his shoulders 
rounded with scholarly stoop, and his fine head 
covered by the flat felt hat commonly worn by the 
English clergy. " Yes, a drug in the market ; often 
it is impossible to get a man to work it for nothing ; 
and if the land is not worked, it will rapidly deterio- 
rate." He talked freely and unaffectedly regarding 
the economic outlook, but never once seemed to for- 
get in his care for worldly matters that he had a 
divine mission at his door. This thought appeared to 
lend a sweet dignity to his position in this humble 
parish, and incite him to intellectual efforts which 
narrower men reserve for a broader field. 

While walking in the garden, we had evidence of the 
pastoral relation between parson and people. Our 
host was summoned into the house, but soon returned, 
saying that an honest villager had just called at the rec- 
tory to notify him that " two strangers had been seen 
in the place sketching." The circumstance amused us, 
being the strangers thus closely observed ; but the rec- 
tor treated it as commonplace that he should be kept 
informed in village news. We now proceeded to the 
church, which is as old as the rectory. It is being 



The Thames Valley. 291 

restored with good taste, under the careful guidance 
of a leading architect. A low Norman arch is set 
between the nave and the unusually large chancel. 
The pastor and his flock would have liked to tear this 
out, as it sadly interrupts the view of the congrega- 
tion, and prevents the choir from being fully heard ; 
but the architect having said it would be a sacrilege 
to disturb so interesting and almost unique a bit of 
historical masonry, they had yielded to his judgment, 
and Standlake parishioners will continue to hear but a 
confusion of sounds from the almost invisible clergy- 
man and choristers. 

Bidding the rector adieu at half-past two o'clock, 
we reclaimed our machines at the grocery, and set 
forth due south to New Bridge, a few miles away, 
over level meadows bright with waving grass, in 
which haymakers were at work, men, women, and 
children. Overhead, light clouds scudded fast, some- 
times in masses, again in open order, showing great 
patches of azure beyond. Between this and evening 
several showers fell ; but they were as quick in pas- 
sage as approach, and but served to freshen the face 
of smiling Nature. 

New Bridge, despite its name, is the oldest cross- 
ing on the Thames, having been erected six hundred 
years ago by the monks of a neighboring monastery 
which to-day exists only in memory. It is a quaint, 
solidly built structure of seven pointed arches, in the 
midst of a graceful landscape, the low banks of the 
winding river being well hung with trees, while sev- 
eral picturesque old cottages of river-men closely 
nestle by the shore. Just above, the Thames receives 
the nitrous waters of the Windrush, now clear enough 



292 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

after their service in washing the blankets made in 
Witney factories. Southward — in Berkshire, which 
we have entered on passing over New Bridge — rises 
Harrowdown Hill, up whose slope we have a vigorous 
climb, to find on the plateau that a head wind is pre- 
vailing, which quite upsets our hopes of passing the 
night in Market Ilsley, beyond Blewbury Plain and 
Ickleton Street. 

That is how we came to put up at Abingdon 
(six thousand inhabitants), having made a circuit of 
twenty- two miles to-day, to reach a point but eight 
miles south of Oxford. . It is a pretty spot, with the 
Thames meadows again at our front door, and Ox- 
fordshire just over the river, and, after all, we are glad 
that fortune turned our wheels hither. There is an 
island in the middle of the river with an inn upon 
it ; and a double bridge five hundred years old, with 
arches of dissimilar size, connects the two shires. In 
olden days, Abingdon was famous for its abbey, which 
ranked next to Glastonbury, and like it was confis- 
cated and despoiled by Henry VIII. There are few 
ruins extant of this once extensive and beautiful es- 
tablishment. Of the church, which, in splendor, 
doubtless rivalled Glastonbury, there is nothing left, 
— enough remains of the refectory to show its once 
noble proportions and beauty, and here and there 
are fine bits of the old abbey walls, and a gate or 
two. Elsewhere are other remains of historic archi- 
tecture, — chief among them being Christ's Hospital, 
an almshouse founded in the reign of Henry V., and 
the churches of St. Nicholas and St. Helen, both built 
early in the fourteenth century. 

After dinner we strolled along the Thames tow- 



The Thames Valley. 293 

path, getting fine views of the town, which is on a 
ridge overlooking the meadows. Numbers of people 
were out in the fields, like ourselves, enjoying the 
cool evening air. Upon the smooth river, near the 
lock, were aristocratic house-boats ranged along 
the shore, and numerous plebeian row-boats flitting 
hither and thither, bearing gay companies of young 
people, who thumbed guitars and sang operatic 
snatches with more or less harmony. As we stood 
by the lock, enjoying to our full this pleasant scene, 
a shrill whistle sounded from up the river ; the ten- 
der and his children ran to. the gates, and soon a 
long skiff with a half-dozen ladies and gentlemen 
aboard came shooting down the course and entered 
the basin of the lock, to be soon sent forth upon the 
lower level. A few vigorous pulls brought them to a 
boat-house pier, where they hauled up for the night. 
We have them for fellow-guests at our inn. 

Thousands annually make the boating tour of the 
Thames from Oxford to Henley, and there is a con- 
siderable business at Oxford in the renting of skiffs 
for this purpose. It certainly must be a delightful 
excursion in many ways ; but in the height of the sea- 
son the river is rather too crowded for those who 
wish to take their outing upon unfrequented paths, 
where it is not necessary to peer over the heads of 
a throng of pleasure-seekers to have a look at the 
beauties of Nature. 

Stratfieldsaye, Berks, Tuesday ', >jtk. Having a 
long run ahead of us to-day, we were off from Abing- 
don at eight o'clock this morning, making the twenty- 
eight miles to Reading by noon, in the face of a 
head wind and frequent smart showers. Until near- 



294 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

ing the Ilsley Downs, near Steventon, the country is 
rolling; but henceforth into Reading, by the way of 
Blewbury, Streatley, and Pangbourn, we closely fol- 
low the river Thames over a broad expanse of flat 
meadows, studded with young timber. Every few 
miles there are picturesque villages, some of them 
neatly compact, others straggling around a verdant 
common, under whose tree-clumps cows and geese 
were clustered from the storm, in friendly commun- 
ion. Parks, and the fine country mansions of the 
wealthy, were numerous along our shining route. 
Frequently we overtook truck-carts bound for the 
Reading market, the drivers crouching low on their 
seats, with great sacks thrown over their shoulders to 
keep off the pouring rain, and horses and ponies 
emitting clouds of steam. 

Reading is the county town of Berks, and a prosper- 
ous-looking place ot forty-two thousand inhabitants, 
with old buildings and new freely commingled. Our 
course lay through the heart of Reading from north to 
south ; and it was often with difficulty that we could 
thread our way through the maze of vehicles in the 
narrow artery, for it is market-day, and no Englishman 
stays at home because of wet weather. It was a relief 
at last to emerge from the crush and noise of the city, 
and be speeding across fields under a leaden sky. 
At Three Mile Cross, a small group of modern brick 
cottages, we turned off upon a secluded by-road, lead- 
ing past the beautiful estates of Grazely Lodge and 
Oakfield House, and in a few miles reached the se- 
date little village of Mortimer Stratfield, just as the 
aerial flood-gates burst, and there seemed every pros- 
pect of Berkshire being washed off the face of the 



The Thames Valley. 295 

earth. We had sought the post-office — a rose-clad 
cottage set in a glowing flower-garden — for informa- 
tion as to the road, and while the storm passed, stood 
at the box-window chatting with the mistress and her 
blue-eyed girl telegrapher (this is a land of postal- 
telegraphy), not venturing forth until the sun gleamed 
once more. 

Three miles of rolling road, stretching off south- 
westward, lay between us and Silchester, the object 
of our search. The hedges are high and dense ; hol- 
low lanes frequently cross at right angles ; the air is 
heavy with the mingled perfume of wild roses, elder, 
and white honeysuckle ; campanula are on every side, 
with a sort of yellow bed-straw, ox-eye daisies, and 
fields in which scarlet poppies are more abundant 
than stalks of grain. Through hedge openings, on 
the summits of the rises, there are delicious land- 
scape glimpses, — waving meadows, outstretched fields 
and pastures, and timber plantations. Primeval oaks 
are here and there seen, each with a kingly space 
about it, and lusty elms, copper beeches, and maples, 
all spreading a genial shade, welcome enough to 
grazing cattle during the few intervals of sunshine. 

It is misting again, as — about ten miles from 
Reading — we cross the line into Hampshire ; and 
there at once rises on our right, with a copse-grown 
fosse intervening, the hoary south wall of the Romano- 
British city now known by the Saxon name of Sil- 
chester, but doubtless the Calleva of the itineraries. 
There were partial excavations at Silchester in 1833 ; 
but it was not until 1864 that serious investigation 
was made, by order of the Duke of Wellington, on 
whose Stratfieldsaye estate lies this buried town of 



296 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

the ancients. The work was, however, dropped until 
last year, when the Society of Antiquaries entered 
upon a detailed examination of the site, and is still 
engaged in the task. The remains found at this im- 
portant military camp, on the old highway from Lon- 
don to Bath, are similar in character to those already 
unearthed at Wroxeter (Uriconium), in Shropshire, 
and at St. Albans (Verulamium), in Hertford; but 
the present excavation is to be the most extensive 
and systematic yet undertaken in England, and the 
published results will soon make Silchester the most 
famous of Romano-British cities. 

The site of Silchester, concerning whose history we 
have little definite knowledge, occupies an elevated 
field of about a hundred acres, in one of the most 
isolated districts in rural Hants. The encircling wall, 
whose southeast corner now looms before us, jagged 
in outline and heavily grown to ivy and hawthorn, is 
made of flint with stone bonding courses ; it is over 
nine feet thick, and averages, with few breaks, a 
height of twelve or fourteen ; the southern flank, 
which we skirt in search of an opening, sometimes 
attains an altitude of twenty feet. At the distance of 
six hundred yards southwest of the corner, is a rude 
gap, where once stood the ponderous south gate. 
Wattled hurdles now bar the way, and there is dis- 
played a notice in black letters rudely scrawled on a 
piece of unpainted deal : — 



No Admission 

to Ruins only through 

wicket Gates. 






The Thames Valley. 297 

The learned Society of Antiquaries evidently in- 
tends we shall seek entrance elsewhere. The wall at 
this point suddenly swerves to the northwest, off 
through a bit of gnarled copse ; and there being no 
wicket gates anywhere in sight, we plunge ahead for a 
half-mile or more, down the shaded and lonesome 
road, before reaching a human habitation. At a 
poverty-stricken cottage on the edge of a wood, a 
ragged boy directs us back by the path we came, 
with instructions to turn north at the southeast cor- 
. ner, through a dark lane, and enter " the ruins " 
through the rickyard of a farmstead which we shall 
find near the east gate. 

With some difficulty we found the unticketed en- 
trance, and after examining the curious stone farm- 
house, a relic of the seventeenth century, passed on 
through the rickyard, greatly disturbing a colony of 
ducklings, and emerged upon a narrow by-road which 
crosses the Silchester site not far from the ancient 
east-and-west street. Hawthorn hedges line the level 
way ; and over them we caught glimpses, within the 
great circle of the wall, of fields of wheat and barley, 
and here and there in their midst ridges of earth 
thrown up from excavations. Halfway across there 
is a wicket on either side, — each bearing the legend, 
"Admission 6r/.," — the portion of the site lying to 
the north of the road being retained in the posses- 
sion of the Duke of Wellington, whose agents still oc- 
casionally do some digging here, that to the south 
being rented from the duke by the Society of Anti- 
quaries. Upon the duke's side, a few rods within 
the wicket, is a board shed wherein is exhibited a 
small but interesting museum of Silchester " finds," 



298 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

chiefly pottery, articles in bronze and iron, remains 
of decorated wall-plaster, pieces of carved stone, curi- 
ously marked roofing tiles, and portions of tessellated 
pavements. Near by are the foundation outlines of 
several shops and houses, with tessellated floors, and 
a well-preserved hypocaust. 

A stupid old peasant is in charge, from whom in- 
formation was extracted only by the most elaborate 
cross-questioning, — the extent of his understanding of 
the matter appearing to be limited to an appreciation 
of the fact that he was paid sixty cents per day the 
year around as the duke's care-taker, and that the 
annual receipts from visitors amounted to some fif- 
teen or twenty dollars, with the attendance diminish- 
ing as the popular curiosity wore away. The aged 
cicerone was under instructions to accompany visitors 
in their wanderings south of the road also ; but upon 
our exhausting the duke's curiosities, he let us through 
the opposite wicket, and lay down on the damp grass 
outside until our return. The grain, which is growing 
thickly everywhere, except on the excavations, was sop- 
ping from the showers which have prevailed all day ; 
and in making our way along the narrow footpaths 
connecting the several points of interest, our rubber 
clothing alone saved us from being wet to the skin. 
But thus fortified, we wandered about at will on the 
extensive sites of the forum and temple, only the 
foundation outlines of which remain, with a few 
broken columns and capitals. 

About three and a half acres of the field of Sil- 
chester are now being excavated, the area being sur- 
rounded by ridges of the earth which lies somewhat 
over a foot in depth over the ancient surface. These 



The Thames Valley. 299 

ridges are strewn with placards warning the public 
not to venture into the space under investigation, the 
reason for this precaution being that every scrap of 
material which can throw light on the past is each 
day carefully washed and sorted. The duke claims 
possession of all finds, intending to present them to 
the Reading Museum, which has already largely bene- 
fited from his generosity in this direction. At the 
close of the summer's operations the earth will be re- 
placed except over unusually interesting architectural 
remains, which may deserve to be placed on perma- 
nent exhibition ; but all ground uncovered is thor- 
oughly mapped, and sketches, models, and plans are 
made for the Society's use. 

The work this season is confined to two squares, 
or insulce, on the west side of the basilica. In each 
insula there is a large proportion of open ground, 
thought to be gardens, with the foundations of nu- 
merous shops and dwellings along the street-fronts. 
The pavements unearthed are coarsely constructed, 
yet the simple red, drab, and purple tesserce were 
effectively blended by skilled workmen. Among the 
interesting finds this summer are the skeleton of a 
dog, and the skeleton and scales of a pet fish buried 
by its owner in a pot covered by a bit of flint. The 
season does not appear to have been characterized 
by any sensational discoveries, yet a great number of 
foundations have been laid bare, a considerable va- 
riety of pottery and other objects of use and orna- 
ment extracted, and some curious facts brought forth 
relative to Romano-British architecture. A score of 
workmen were engaged at the time of our visit, under 
the charge of two or three gentlemen representing 



300 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

the Society. We were sharply watched in the course 
of our walk through the ruins, as though we might be 
bent on purloining, but having paid our shilling, took 
no notice of the fact that we were suspects, and saw 
nothing in the heaps of rubbish to tempt us to de- 
spoil either the duke or the Society. 

Under a dull gray sky, with a Scotch mist almost 
continually enwrapping us, the temperature at the shiv- 
ering stage, and mud enough on our boots seriously to 
impede navigation, we found this dead city of the Ro- 
mans a most depressing place. Our curiosity at last 
sated, we were glad enough to recover our machines 
from the care-taker, who must have added to his 
rheumatism while waiting for us under the dripping 
hedge, and again to be on our way, — this time 
headed for Stratneldsaye village, four miles to the 
east, where we were to put up for the night at the 
farmhouse of a Hampshire friend. 

On a hillside halfway out, in the midst of a pleas- 
ing rural landscape, a gusty rain-storm overtook us, 
and we huddled for shelter beneath a high hedge 
overhung with trees. For three quarters of an hour we 
sat on the moist bank, great drops pattering upon our 
waterproofs, but avoiding the fierce downpour with- 
out, which soon overflowed the road-ditch and brought 
the surface pebbles rattling down the steep incline of 
the macadamed way. A ploughman, riding one great 
black horse and leading another, joined us in our 
misty haven; his shoulders were covered by a grain 
sack thrown loosely over them and knotted at the 
neck, — a favorite weather-shield among agricultural 
laborers and teamsters. He was a rough, pleasant- 
faced fellow, full of curiosity at our machines, but not 



The Thames Valley. 301 

inclined to be communicative, and soon moved on, 
apparently doubting the efficacy of our leaky refuge. 
He had no sooner departed than a laboring boy, 
with bill-hook and lunch-basket, came scampering 
through the opposite hedge, and sought asylum by 
our side. A spare, wizen-faced lad, with a shock of 
red hair, well-patched clothes, and heavy brogans, 
was our companion. At first he seemed shy, but 
upon encouragement soon found his tongue. He 
was fifteen, he said. I asked him if he went to 
school, whereupon he straightened up and in an 
indignant tone replied, " I be through school, sir ! " 
At the age of ten he had passed the fourth grade, 
the highest in his school, and thought there was little 
else to learn ; his sister, two years older, had gradu- 
ated with him. To be sure, he said, some schools he 
had heard of had six grades, but he did n't fancy 
such. Then again, there were boys who stayed at 
school till fourteen years of age ; but that must be 
because some years they did n't pass. For himself, 
he had been at work since he was ten, at first getting 
thirty- six cents a week, but now he had got up to a 
dollar. Did n't know how much a man's wages were. 
Sometimes he had a half-holiday. Last year, under 
a former master, he was " bad [that is, ill] for a 
week," but his wages were not docked, which he 
thought very good treatment. Perhaps his new mas- 
ter — his family had just "shifted" to here from 
Silchester — would not treat him as well as this, but 
he did n't know j " very like " this master might 
give him a half- holiday now and then, and very 
like not, — couldn't tell; would have to wait and 
see. 



302 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

At last the clouds suddenly broke ; and Nature 
smiled as sweetly as though she had never frowned. 
The youthful drudge bounded off across the rolling 
fields ; we took up the line of march, and at a quarter 
to six were at the house of our friend, whose farm 
abuts one of the four widely separated clumps of 
cottages which together constitute the village of 
Stratfieldsaye. 

Staines, Wednesday, Zth. The day opened beau- 
tifully, with field and forest fresh from their bath, a 
faint southwest breeze, and the sun brilliant in an al- 
most cloudless sky. At ten o'clock we bade farewell 
to our hospitable entertainers, and were off northeast- 
ward over a level road, a trifle heavy from the sandy 
ballast being still wet from yesterday's flooding, but 
on the whole good. All about is the well-kept estate 
of the Duke of Wellington, one vast park, with fine 
old trees, beautiful woods, and fertile meadows. 
Passing through two more of the village clumps, we 
came upon an open spot in front of the modest 
wooden gateway of Stratfieldsaye House, the duke's 
seat, where rises the nation's monument to his an- 
cestor, the " Iron Duke," — a tall plain marble shaft 
with Ionic capital, surmounted by an heroic bronze 
statue of the hero of Waterloo. Here the character 
of the country suddenly changes ; the soil is thin and 
gravelly, dark plantations of pines succeed the oaks, 
elms, and beeches, in whose dense shade we have 
been wheeling, and there are wide expanses of moor- 
land, purplish with heather, and ragged with furze 
and giant brackens. 

Leading off from the base of the monument, a 
broad avenue has been cut through the pines as 



The Thames Valley. 303 

straight as a die several miles due north towards 
Reading. We followed this undeviating highway for 
a mile or two, Wellington's monument proudly clos- 
ing the vista to our rear, and then, once more in a 
fertile district, branched off at Swallowfield upon a 
winding by-road which took us through some of the 
most delectable rural scenes in all Berkshire, into the 
busy little market-town of Wokingham (three thou- 
sand inhabitants) on the western border of Windsor 
Forest. 

After dinner at Wokingham (Oakingham of old), 
we left by the southern coach- road to Ascot, through 
the pleasant village of Bracknell, and in half a dozen 
miles out turned northward with the famous Ascot race- 
ground on our right. Like Goodwood, it is a turf- 
grown course ; and sprawling through a large field of 
furze, broom, heather, bracken, and scrub-pine, its 
present dismal condition not even dimly suggests the 
gay scenes which each June make this patch of wild 
land the centre of the sporting world. 

We are wheeling through the crown lands now. 
Windsor Forest comes up to the highway on both 
sides, occasionally broken on the left by small free- 
hold tracts, on some of which are blocks of new 
brick houses, pretentiously tricked out with terra-cotta 
ornaments ; there is a small wayside public, a petty 
shop or two, and a few modest thatched cottages in- 
habited by woodsmen. Along our well-kept way, for 
two miles north from the Ascot course, are numerous 
signs forbidding the public to venture within the for- 
est, which is hemmed in with bare banks of earth, 
with hedges, or with palings. The phraseology on 
these signs is so awkward that we marvel at Her 



304 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

Majesty allowing the rangers to misuse " the Queen's 
English " almost within sight of the windows of 
Windsor Castle. 

The public road took us on through the simple 
gate of Hollygrove into the great park itself, — a 
magnificent tract of eighteen hundred acres, of which 
Pope, who loved its still haunts well, sung in words 
which are as true in our day as in his : — 

" There, interspers'd in lawns and op'ning glades, 
Thin trees arise, that shun each other's shades. 
Here in full light the russet plains extend ; 
There, wrapt in clouds, the bluish hills ascend." 

It was a surprise to find so many stately oaks yet 
left, their gnarled and broken limbs suggestive of 
great antiquity ; and the vast stretches of greensward 
between the clusters are wonderfully inspiring. The 
Great Park is even more impressive than our fondest 
fancy had painted it. Taking the upper road east- 
ward, we had a beautiful panorama all the way, — a 
grand carpet of forest sweeping below us to the base 
of Castle Hill, which rises darkly upon .the northern 
horizon, on its slope the red-tiled town of Windsor, 
and on its summit the massive fortress-home of her 
Majesty, over which was proudly floating the royal 
standard. 

At the top of the Long Walk, that stately avenue 
of elms leading down from the Castle and up to 
Cumberland Lodge, there were gathered perhaps 
fifty of the neighboring gentry, with their carriages. 
This little company were waiting to see the German 
Emperor, who is being entertained just now by his 
* imperial grandmother, pass on his way to a garden- 



The Thames Valley. 305 

party at the Lodge. Chance had led us thither just 
in time to see the procession come in sight down the 
walk, and slowly approach us on the up-grade. First 
appeared two anciently uniformed yeomen of the guard, 
finely mounted ; next, an open landau drawn by four 
horses, with two gayly apparelled postilions ; in this 
carriage were seated the Emperor and Empress, — a 
well-appearing but not impressive couple, the former 
being attired in the conventional afternoon dress of 
an English gentleman, the latter in bonnet and gown 
of pale pink. Both of them smiled sweetly, and ac- 
knowledged our salutes with well-trained grace. Fol- 
lowing that of the guests were a half-dozen carriages, 
with the Prince and Princess of Wales and other 
ladies and gentlemen of the court, a small squad of 
cavalry bringing up the rear. 

We were fortunate to have this " private view," so 
to speak, for on the occasion of the Emperor's state 
entry into London city day after to-morrow, the streets 
of the metropolis will be packed to suffocation, and 
we could with difficulty, even if we wished it, get the 
merest glimpse of the distinguished strangers. As it 
was, we were but twenty-five feet distant from them, 
and had not over fifty fellow-spectators. With our 
democratic notions, I doubt if we should have wheeled 
two miles out of our way in order simply to gaze on 
royalty ; but when the spectacle was brought to our 
door, in this quiet sort of fashion, we were pleased 
enough at the incident. 

Emerging from the park by the Bishop's Gate, it 

was a short spin into the hillside village of Egham, 

where a heavy shower sent us for shelter into a little 

grocery shop. The keeper, a woman of forty, with a 

20 



306 Otir Cycling Tour in England. 

considerable family, said she had lived here for nine 
years, and had never yet set foot within Windsor 
Park, which is but two hundred yards distant, at the 
head of the street. Her husband had once been to 
Magna Charta Island, a mile away by a footpath over 
the fields, but for herself she had " seen none o' the 
sights hereabout." 

At the first lull in the storm, we were off again 
down the mile-stretch of high street, and then 
through a by-way reached the country road which 
closely skirts the south bank of the Thames from 
Staines to Old Windsor, through the wide, swampy 
meadow known from time immemorial as Runny- 
mede. To the south, rising gently from the historic 
mead, lies Cooper's Hill, one of the most command- 
ing eminences in the valley of the Thames. On its 
slopes the barons camped when they brought King 
John to terms, in the marsh below, and Denham and 
Pope both have sung its praises in immortal verse. 
Egham occupies a part of this noted height, and 
upon it, also, is the extensive Royal Indian Engineer- 
ing College, whose white and gray buildings peer 
imposingly above the tree-tops. 

Coursing along the flat reaches of Runnymede, we 
keep a sharp lookout for Magna Charta Island, where 
John signed the charter six hundred and seventy-six 
years ago (June 15, 12 15). But one must hunt 
closely to find it. Standing on the southern bank, it 
is difficult to tell the island from the northern shore, 
from which it is separated by a narrow bayou not 
visible from our path. Apparently the opposite line of 
meadow is unbroken. Only frequent questioning of 
teamsters passing along this rather dismal river-road 



The Thames Valley. 307 

enabled us at last, a mile above Egham, to fix upon 
the location, which we were enabled to verify from 
an old print in our possession. 

The rain was now fairly pouring upon us, and no 
trace of a shelter in this naked marsh; but being 
well waterproofed, we would not retreat without see- 
ing what was to be seen of the famous spot. That 
was little, however. Upon the island is a small, 
pretty stone dwelling in the Elizabethan style, with a 
neat lawn and a thick growth of trees not readily dis- 
tinguishable from those lining the bank above and 
below. We had been informed in the village that 
not under any pretext would we be admitted upon 
the island ; and indeed we could readily see, across 
the stone's throw of intervening river, that all ap- 
proaches from the south were carefully guarded 
against, the family entrance being to the north. 
The tenant evidently does not sympathize with tour- 
ists. There was nothing to do but stare at Magna 
Charta Island through the sousing rain, and reflect 
that if Runnymede was as damp as this on the immor- 
tal day, the armor of the barons must have creaked 
with rust. 

A fickle climate this. When at last we re-entered 
Egham high street where we had left it, the clouds 
suddenly parted, and on our reaching Staines (five 
thousand inhabitants), a mile beyond, the heavens re- 
tained few traces of the storm. To-night, in the sun- 
set glow, the Thames, gay with boating parties, rolls 
gently beneath our chamber window, like a stream of 
burnished gold. 

Caterham, Surrey, Thursday, gth. We were off 
from our inn at Staines this morning by ten o'clock, 



308 Our Cycling Tour in England. 

and had a succession of large towns and intervening 
fields all the way across to Caterham, — Kingston, 
Wimbledon, Tooting, and Croydon, being chief 
among the busy suburbs through whose crowded 
streets we wheeled our way. " Greater London " is 
growing with a rapidity quite equal to some of our 
most thriving American cities. Not many decades 
hence, these outlying towns will meet one another 
across the fields and present a continuous line of 
buildings and metropolitan pavements from the Sur- 
rey heights into Cornhill. 

After seven hundred miles of gypsying, it is pleas- 
ant to find ourselves once more under the hospita- 
ble roof which we have come to look upon as our 
English home ; yet a dash of melancholy disturbs 
our comfort, for in housing here the wheels which 
have carried us safely through a realm of pure de- 
light, we are parting from well-tried friends whom 
we shall sadly miss in the months of touring still to 
come. 

On board the " Scythia" westward bound, Septem- 
ber 24. In truth, we did most sadly miss them. The 
balance of our stay in Britain was spent in touring of 
the ordinary sort. Railways, coaches, and steam- 
boats had thenceforth but little attraction for W 

and me. In stuffy compartments and in ill-smelling 
cabins, we sighed for the freedom of our cycles, for 
the fresh beauty of rural highways, for the privilege of 
lingering on breezy hill-tops and in sequestered vales, 
for communion with rustic folk, whom thereafter we 
seldom met ; and we have come to regard our cycling 
experience of six weeks as of far more value than our 



The Thames Valley. 309 

six months of conventional travelling, for on our 
wheels, as in no other way, we found^ just what we 
wanted to find, and saw what we set out to see, — 
what the hedge-rows say, and how John and Mary live 
in their wayside cottage. 




INDEX. 



Abbot's Worthy, $y. 
Abingdon, 278, 292, 293. 
Affpuddle, 184. 
Aldershot, 82. 
Alice Holt Wood, 75, 76. 
Alton, 16, 51, 68, 71-86. 
Alum Bay, 100-102. 
Amesbury, 141, 144-146, 149. 
Amphiel Wood, no. 
Andredsweald, The, 58, 75. 
Anstey, 74. 
Arundel, 44-49, 52. 
Ascot, 303. 

Ashbury Downs, 272, 278. 
Ashcot Station, 240. 
Ashdown, 276. 
Ashford, 22. 
Askerswell, 192. 
Axminster, 195, 197, 19S. 



Bablock Hythe, 285. 

Balking, 27S. 

Barnstaple (Barum), 221, 223-226, 

238, 239. 
Basing House, 68. 
Bath, 247, 255, 256, 262, 264, 265, 

278, 296. 
Battle, 31-34. 
Beachy Head, 35. 
Beaulieu Abbey, 166. 
Bembridge Hill, 97. 
Bere Regis, 183. 
Berkshire, 273-295, 302-307. 



Besilsleigh Park, 282. 

Bethersden, 23. 

Bideford, 238. 

Bideford Bay, 235, 236. 

Binsted, 75, 78. 

Bishop's Tawton, 223. 

Blewbury, 294. 

Blewbury Plain, 292. 

Bolderwood, 169, 170. 

Boreham Street, 34. 

Bournemouth, 178. 

Box, 265. 

Boxgrove, 49, 50. 

Bracknell, 303. 

Brading, 98, 99. 

Bratley Plain, 170. 

Bratton Castle, 255. 

Bridport, 189, 192, 193. 

Brighton, 39, 40. 

Bristol, 256, 257, 262. 

" British Village " remains, 284, 

286-291, 295. 
Broadstairs, 39. 
Brockenhurst, 169-172. 
Brook, 153, 155, 158, 159. 
Brue Level, 239, 240, 247. 
Bryan's Puddle, 1S4. 



Canford Magna, 180. 
Canterbury, 15-19, 246. 
Canterton, 159. 
Carisbrooke Castle, 105-108. 
Castle Malwood, 160, 163, 166. 



312 



Index. 



Caterham, 15, 308. 

Catsfield, 34. 

Challow, 278. 

Charlton, 55, 56. 

Charmouth, 193-196. 

Chartham, 21. 

Chawton, 71, 80, 86. 

Chepstow, 260-262. 

Chichester, 49, 50, 51, 54, 55. 

Chidcock, 193. 

Chilcompton, 250-253. 

Childrey, 279. 

Chippenham, 265, 266. 

Chris tchurch, 169, 173-178. 

Chulmleigh, 213. 

Clovelly, 227, 236-238, 258. 

Combe Martin, 231, 232, 234, 235. 

Compton Beauchamp, 274, 275. 

Cooper's Hill, 306. 

Corfe Mullen, 183. 

Corking, 56. 

Cowes, 108, 109. 

Crampton Moor, in. 

Croydon, 308. 

Cumnor, 282, 284. 



Dartmoor, 201-223. 

Devonshire, 196-238. 
Dicker Common, 34, 35. 
Doccombe, 206, 210. 
Dockenfield, 76, 77. 
Dorchester, 183, 184, 186-188, 190. 
Dorset, 178-196. 
Downton, 153-155. 
Dunsford (Devon), 207. 
Dunsford Hamlet (Sussex), 56. 



East Cowes, 109. 
East Dean, 55. 
Easton, 213. 
East Tisted, 68-70, 80. 
Eaton (Berks), 284. 
Edington, 255. 
Eggesford, 221, 222. 



Egham, 305-307. 
Embley Park, 114. 
Emborough, 250. 
Emsbury Green, 179, 180. 
Exeter, 199-203, 207, 247. 
Exminster, 202. 
Exmoor, 231-235. 



Farnham, 74, 82, 83, 84. 
Farringdon, 71, 80. 
Farringford Hill, 102. 
Forest of Dean, 261. 
Frensham Pond, 77. 
Freshwater, 100, 104. 
Frilford, 281. 



Gaunt House, 284, 286. 

Gittisham, 199. 

Glastonbury, 240-245, 248, 249, 

292. 
Goodwood House, 52-54. 
Goosey, 278. 
Great Chart, 23. 
Great Durnford, 149, 151. 
Great Faringdon, 282. 
Greatham, 81. 
Grove, 280, 281. 



Hampshire, 68-95, 110-T33, 154— 

178, 295-302. 
Hampworth Common, 154, 156, 

158. 
Harrowdown Hill, 292. 
Hastings, 32, 33, 39. 
Headborn Worthy, 87. 
Henley, 293. 
Heyshot Downs, 56. 
Highbridge, 239. 
High Halden, 23, 24. 
Holdenhurst, 179. 
Holybourne, 74. 
Honiton, 198, 199. 
Honiton Clist, 199. 



Index. 



313 



Horse Bridge, 34, 36. 
Hursley, no. 
Hurst Castle, 166. 

Ickleton Street, 279, 292. 
llfracombe, 226-230, 235. 
Ilsley Downs, 279, 280, 294. 
Isle of Avalon, 240. 
Isle of Wight, 88, 94, 95" I0 9, l 1h 

173- 
Itchen Abbas, 87. 
Itchen Stoke, 87. 



Kennington, 21. 
Kent, 15-26, 35. 
Kilmersdon, 250, 252. 
Kingsley, 78. 
Kingston (Berks), 279. 



Kingston (Surrey), 308. 
King's Worthy, 87. 
Kinson, 180. 
Knighton, 180. 



Lambeth Castle, 197. 
Lambourn Downs, 275, 278. 
Lancing Hamlet, 42. 
Lang Down, 215. 
Langrish, 68. 
Laughton Pound, 34, 36. 
Lewes, 34, 36-38, 51. 
Liddington Downs, 272. 
Lisle, 279. 
Liss, 81. 

Long Down End, 203, 205. 
Lunday Island, 237, 238. 
Lyme Bay, 192. 
Lyme Regis, 194, 195. 
Lymington, 169, 172. 
Lyndhurst, 153, 158, 163-169. 
Lynmouth, 232, 233. 
Lynton, 230-233. 

Magham Down, 34. 



Magna Charta Island, 306, 307. 

Maiden Castle, 187-189. 

Mardon Down, 208, 209. 

Margate, 39. 

Mark Ash Wood, 171. 

Market Ilsley, 292. 

Martyr Worthy, 87. 

Maumbury Rings, 187, 188. 

Mendip Hills, 247. 

Midhurst, 51, 56-66. 

Milton, 21. 

M instead, 153, 163. 

Monmouth, 257-259. 

Monmouthshire, 257-262. 

Moreton Hampstead, 201, 203, 206, 

210-212. 
Mortimer Stratfield, 294, 295. 

Netley Abbey, 166. 

New Alresford, 86. 

New Bridge (on Teign), 207. 

New Bridge (on Thames), 291. 

Newenden, 23, 26. 

New Forest, 104, 109, 153-173- 

Newport (Devon), 223. 

Newport (Isle of Wight), 100, 106. 

New Shoreham, ^7, 40, 41. 

Ninfield, 34. 

Normanhurst, 33, 34. 

Northiam, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. 

Northmoor, 286. 

North Tawton, 213, 215-221. 



Ogbury Camp, 142, 146, 

Okehampton, 213, 215. 

Oldbury, 255. 

Old Sarum, 137-142, 152. 

Old Shoreham, 41. 

Old Wives, 22. 

Oxford, 280-284, 292, 293. 

Oxfordshire, 287-291. 



Panacombe, 234. 
Pangbourn, 294. 



5 1 - 



314 



Index. 



Penny Pot, 22. 
Petersfield, 51, 67, 68. 
Pevensey Level, 31. 
Pitt, no. 

Polden Hills, 239, 248. 
Pounclbury, 187. 
Puddlehinton, 184. 
Puddletown, 184. 
Puddletrenthide, 184. 
Puncknowle, 192. 



Radstock, 253-255. 
Raglan, 259, 260, 262. 
Ramsgate, 39. 
Reading, 293-295, 313. 
Red Hill, 180. 
Ringmer, 34, 37. 
Ringwood, 153. 
River Adur, 40, 41. 

Anton, see Test. 

Arun, 46, 49, 56. 

Avon (Wilts), 135, 137, 145, 
146, 151, 153, 173, 174. 

Axe, 196-198. 

Brede, 30. 

Brit, 192, 193. 

Char, 193, 195. 

Clist, 199. 

Exe, 200-202, 204. 

Froom, 186. 

Great Stour, 19, 20, 21. 

Itchen, 87, 88, 93, 109. 

Lavant, 50, 51, 52, 56. 

Medina, 109. 

Monnow, 258. 

Ock, 278. 

Otter, 199. 

Ouse, 37. 

Puddle, 183, 184, 186. 

Rother (Kent), 26. 

Rother (Sussex), 56, 60. 

Severn, 257, 261. 

Stour, 174, 178, 179, 183. 

Taw, 213, 221, 222, 225, 226. 

Taw Branch, 216, 221-223. 



River Teign, 206. 

Test, 109, ri2, 113. 

Thames, 278, 282-308. 

Torridge, 213. 

Trent, see Puddle. 

Wey, 74, 79. 

Windrush, 289-292. 

Wye, 257-262. 
Rockbeare, 199. 
Rogate, 67. 
Rolvenden, 23. 

Roman camps, 142, 146, 151, 187, 

188, 191, 197, 255, 256, 278-280. 

Roman roads, 142, 190, 209, 279. 

Roman ruins, 98, 99, 264, 265, 295- 

300. 
Romsey, no, 112, 113. 
Rufus Stone, 159-163. 
Runnymede, 306, 307. 



St. Albans, 296. 

St. David's, 202. 

Salisbury, no, 136, 137, 141, 147, 

149, i5 2 > 153, i55» 159- 
Salisbury Plain, 142-151, 190, 255. 
Sandown, 88, 95, 96, 98, 100. 
Sarum, see Salisbury. 
School Green, 104. 
Sedgemoor, 239, 240, 245, 248. 
Selborne, 74, 82. 
Senlac, Heights of, 31. 
Severn Tunnel, 257. 
Shanklin, 95, 96. 
Sheet, 67. 

Shellingford (Berks), 278. 
Shillingford (Devon), 203. 
Shrivenham, 272-274. 
Silchester, 295-300. 
Singleton, 55. 
Solent, The, 103. 
Somersetshire, 239-257, 262-265. 
Sompting, 42. 
Southampton, 109, 148. 
South Marston, 272, 273. 
Sparsholt, 279. 



Index. 



315 



Spithead, 95. 

Staines, 306, 307. 

Standen, no. 

Standlake, 284, 286-291. 

Stanton Harcourt, 285, 286. 

Staple Cross, 30. 

Stedham, 67. 

Steep, Si. 

Steventon, 294. 

Stoberry Hill, 248. 

Stokes Bay, 95. 

Stonehenge, 137, 144, 146-149, 151. 

Stratford-under-the-Castle, 152. 

Streatley, 294. 

Surrey, 15, 16,307,308. 

Sussex, 26-68. 

Swallowfield, 303. 

Swan Green, 169, 170. 

Swindon, 270-272. 



Taunton, 239. 
Tavistock, 203, 210-213. 
Tenterden, 23, 25, 26. 
Three Mile Cross, 294. 
Throop, 179. 
Tinturn Abbey, 259, 260. 
Tolpuddle, 184. 
Topsham, 202. 
Tooting, 308. 
Totland Bay, 102, 103. 
Trotton, 67. 

Turner's Puddle, 183, 184. 
Turwick, 67. 



Uffington, 278. 
Uffington Castle; 278, 279. 
Undercliff, The (Isle of Wight), 98. 
Upton Pynes, 202. 



Ventnor, 97, 98. 
Vespasian's Camp, 146. 



Wantage, 279, 280. 

Wells, 243, 246-248, 250, 251. 

Westbury, 255. 

Westdean Wood, 56. 

West Grimstead, 134, 136. 

West Horrington, 247, 248. 

Whallington, 30. 

Whiddon Down, 214, 215. 

White Horse, of Berkshire, 256, 

274-279 ; of Bratton, 255 ; of 

Oldbury, 255. 
Wilminaton, 198. 
Wiltshire, 134-154, 265-273. 
Wimbledon, 308. 
Wimborne Minster, 179-184. 
Winchester, 86, S7-94, 100, no. 
Windsor, 304. 
Windsor (Old), 306. 
Windsor Forest, 303-305. 
Winterborne Abbas, 189, 190. 
Winterborne St. Martin, 188, 189. 
Winterborne Steepleton, 189. 
Winterborne Thompson, 183. 
Winterborne Zelstone, 183. 
Witney, 292. 
Wokingham, 303. 
Woolmer, 81, 82. 
Wootton Bassett, 265-271, 279. 
Worthing, 42. 
Wroxeter, 296. 
Wye Valley, 257-262. 
Wynde cliff, 261. 
Wytham Hill, 282, 285. 



Yaverland, 95. 



Historic Waterways. 

Six Hundred Miles of Canoeing down the Rock, Fox, and 
Wisconsin Rivers. 

WITH TWO CHARTS OF THE ROUTES. 

By REUBEN GOLD THWAITES, 

SECRETARY OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN. 

12mo. Price $1.25. 



Mr. Thwaites is a delightful raconteur, and nothing seems to escape 
his eye. Charming accounts of adventure en route, brilliant word- 
pictures of river scenery, humorous catches of gossip at stopping-places, 
and piscatorial, ornithological, and botanical observations appear in 
succession and repeat. There is not a tedious page in the book. — 
Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin. 

Mr. Thwaites is a genuine lover of Nature, a lover for whom every 
varying mood of sky and stream and flower and weed has charm ; and a 
writer so graphic and poetic and enthusiastic that he makes us charmed 
lovers, too. A lover of human nature he is, as well as a lover of sun- 
shine and the woods; and there is no barefoot boy upon the banks 
during all the six hundred miles of canoeing, no shiftless fisherman upon 
the bridge, no farmer's wife, who escapes his kindly, analytic eye. — 
Christian Register. 

A notably well-written book, a book as full of interest as the best 
told story. — Chicago Evening Journal. 

I have lately read your " Historic Waterways" with much interest. — 
Letter to the author, from Francis Parkman, the historian. 

Mr. Thwaites is a charming writer, especially in description of scenery, 
out-door adventures, and casual intercourse with the settlers on his route 
of travel. His observation is keen ; his sympathies, gay and grave, are 
abundant, and his pen is racy Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. 

A fresh, breezy, and highly-entertaining book — New York Inde- 
pendent. 

It is a bright and charming description of pleasant incidents encount- 
ered, of curious and sometimes ridiculous things and people seen, and 
of scenic views enjoyed while drifting in a canoe through the most 
attractive regions of Wisconsin and Illinois. — The hiterior (Chicago). 

Not only a book of delightful description but of a historic value. . . . 
The book is destined to be admired and read. — Magazine of Western 
History. 



Sold by all booksellers, or mailed, on receipt of price, by 

A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers, 

Cor. Wabash Ave. and Madison St., Chicago. 



Columbus and Beatriz. 

911 $obrf. 

By CONSTANCE GODDARD DU BOIS. 

AUTHOR OF "MARTHA COREY, OR TALE OF SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

12mo. 297 pages. Price $1.00. 



The conception (of the character of Columbus) is admirably consist- 
ent, and not the less forcible for its simplicity. The work is an exquisite 
piece of historical romance, and its closing chapters in particular deserve 
high praise for their proportion, form, and pathos. — The Dial, Chicago. 

She has constructed of her material a tale that is extremely interest- 
ing, and written in very polished English. At this time, when every one 
is thinking of the great discoverer, it is a pleasure to find such strong 
testimony to the devoted, faithful love that existed between him and 
his wife from his marriage until his death. — The Evening Bulletin, 
Philadelphia. 

The story recalls the past with accuracy, and reproduces the historical 
and social atmosphere of the time of Ferdinand and Isabella with a 
picturesqueness that is decidedly effective. — The Saturday Evening 
Gazette, Boston. 

It is most interesting reading, in many parts being so pathetic as to 
bring the tears to one's eyes. — TJie Baltimore A merican. 

Miss DuBois is to be commended for her generosity to the memory 
of the great navigator. She has most certainly succeeded in creating a 
lovely, unselfish, devoted wife and mother in Beatriz Enriquez, —a truly 
charming, if somewhat ideal character; but then it is woman's nature to 
idealize, and Beatriz deserves to stand among the list of noble women of 
the past. — The Boston Transcript. 

The sketch of the life, the enthusiasm, the successes, the disappoint- 
ments of Columbus is graphic, pathetic, and full of interest. The story 
of the life, the unselfish devotion, the unshaken faith, the life-long devo- 
tion of the loving wife and mother is beautifully told with all a woman's 
sympathy and power. — Public Opinion, Washington. 

The story is very pleasantly told in the attractive style which char- 
acterized " Martha Corey," the first of the writer's books, and opens up 
many incidents of interest in the wonderful career of the great discoverer. 
The Home Journal, New York. 



Sold by all booksellers, or mailed, on receipt of price, by 

A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers, 

Cor. Wabash Ave. and Madison St., Chicago. 



MARTHA COREY. 

A TALE OF THE SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

By Constance Goddard du Bois. 

i2mo, 314 pages. Price, $1.00. 



The same material drawn upon by Longfellow for his " New 
England Tragedies" is here used with greater fulness and with no 
less historical exactitude. The story has for its background the 
dark and gloomy pictures of the witchcraft persecution, of which it 
furnishes a thrilling view. It is remarkable for bold imagination, 
wonderfully rapid action, and continued and absorbing interest. 

In short, it is too good a piece of fiction to be accepted as 
truth, which is to the credit of the author's imaginative powers; 
for "Martha Corey" is an absorbing tale. — Public Ledger, 
Philadelphia. 

The story is curious and quaint, differing totally from the 
novels of this day ; and the pictures of life among the early in- 
habitants of Massachusetts show that the author has been an 
untiring and faithful student for her work. — Weekly Item, Phila- 
delphia. 

The characters are well delineated; the language is smooth and 
refined ; and from frequent change of scene and character the book 
is rendered very entertaining. The passions, love and hate, are 
carefully analyzed and faithfully described. It is a valuable little 
book. — Globe. Chicago. 

An interesting tale of love and intrigue. . . . Miss Du Bois 
has given us a very readable book, and has succeeded where others 
have failed. — Advertiser, Boston. 

The story of this book is pleasantly told ; and as a picture of 
those sad times, when some of the worst and the best, of the dark- 
est and the brightest, of the most hateful and the most lovable 
traits of human nature were openly manifested, is well worth 
reading. — Illustrated Christian Weekly, New York. 

A story of marked strength, both of imagination and narration. 
— Home Journal, New York. 



Sold by all booksellers, or mailed, on receipt of price, by 

A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers, 

Cor. Wabash Ave. and Madison St., Chicago. 



THE LAUREL-CROWNED LETTERS. 



The Best Letters of Lord Chesterfield. Edited, with an 

Introduction, by Edward Gilpin Johnson. 
The Best Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Edited. 

with an Introduction, by Octave Thanet. 
The Best Letters of Horace Walpole. Edited, with an 

Introduction, by Anna B. McMahan. 
The Best Letters of Madame de Sevigne. Edited, with 

an Introduction, by Edward Playfair Anderson. 
Each volume is finely printed and bound; T 6mo, 

cloth, gilt tops, price, $1.00. 

In half calf or half morocco, per vol., $2.75. 



Of Lord Chesterfield's Letters, the Atlantic 
Monthly says : — 

The editor seems to make good his claims to have treated these 
letters with such discrimination as to render the book really ser- 
viceable, not only as a piece of literature, but as a text-book in 
politeness. 

Of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters, the 
New York Star says : — 

The selection is indeed an excellent one, and the notes by the 
present editor considerably enhance their value. 

Of Horace Walpole's Letters, the Philadelphia Public 
Ledger says : — 

These witty and entertaining letters show Walpole to bear out 
the promise of his fame, — the prince of letter-writers in an age 
which elevated the occupation into a fine art. 

Of Madame de Sevigne's Letters, the Boston Saticr- 
day Gazette says : — 

Accomplished, witty, pure, Madame de SevignS's noble char- 
acter is reflected in her writings, which will always hold a foremost 
place in the estimation of those who can appreciate high moral and 
intellectual qualities. 

Sold by all booksellers, or mailed, on receipt of price, by 

A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers, 

Cor. "Wabash Ave. and Madison St., Chicago- 



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